3 benefits of scent marketing that will revolutionise your strategy

With exposure to digital content skyrocketing, consumers find themselves increasingly overstimulated and underengaged. As a result, brands can no longer count on capturing the consumer’s attention, they need to be able to create emotional connections that last over time to differentiate themselves from competitors and increase loyalty. This is where a new trend, neuromarketing, can help us make the most of this new complex  landscape. The concept of neuromarketing, which stems from the combination of neuroscience and marketing, in fact, can help us to understand how the brain processes sensory inputs and how they can influence consumers’ decision-making processes to create winning strategies.

One of the most fascinating and least explored aspects of neuromarketing is the use of smell as a marketing lever to influence consumer behavior. Very often, the focus is put on visual and auditory stimuli, however, more and more research shows that smell could be the most strategic sense to leverage as it can bypass logic, connecting directly to people’s subconscious mind, which stores emotions and memory. 

Neuroscience – the study of the nervous system –  confirms that the sense of smell is directly connected  to the limbic system, skipping the thalamus, the part of the brain where sensory information is sorted. This means that smells can trigger intense emotional reactions, evoke specific memories, and alter moods much quicker compared to other senses. 

Research has also shown that olfactory experiences can strengthen the bond between consumer and brand, thus increasing brand recall and loyalty to the point that consumers are 100 times more likely to remember something they have smelled compared to something they have seen, felt or touched.

In an increasingly digitised and visual world, brands have timidly shifted their focus away from the screen to focus on the most underrated sense and gain a competitive advantage in the market. This is when scent marketing emerged. This innovative strand of marketing involves the strategic use of fragrances and perfumes to influence consumers’ perception of the brand and thus their behaviour and isn’t just about making the environment more pleasant (though that always helps) but it is about building sensory experiences that emotionally connect people with brands in an inextricable way.

Today, companies use ambient fragrances to have their brand subliminally linked to specific, positive emotions. Environments that are enriched with perfume are often linked to improved customer experience, but also stimulate greater engagement, increasing the time consumers spend at the point of sale and improving their propensity to buy. Bottom line: the more comfortable consumers feel in an environment, the more likely they are to like and show interest in your brand.

Because smell can speak directly to mood and memory, it can be an incredibly powerful tool for shaping consumer behavior. This sense, in fact, can bypass directly all the defense barriers that consumers normally raise to protect themselves from overstimulation, influencing the subconscious mind directly. 

According to research published in Frontiers in Behavioral Science, perfumes can trigger emotional changes through the use of subtle, delicate smells that act at a subconscious level, influencing mood and behaviour in ways that are not always straightforward but  definitely powerful. 

Science is clear on this: perfumes have a positive influence on moods and emotions. This represents a golden opportunity for companies that can use this knowledge to their advantage. Aire-Master in “The psychological effects of scent on consumer purchasing decisions” explains how fragrances can be interpreted as “gentle impulses” towards consumers who can be unconsciously influenced to change what they eat, what they buy, and even the way they clean. Scent marketing can thus be effectively integrated into a company’s marketing strategy in a holistic way, along with other channels. 

For example, the smell of freshly ground coffee or soothing lavender can transport the consumer to a childhood memory, triggering in him or her a feeling of wellbeing and sometimes even improve his or her mood. 

For companies, this emotional ‘shortcut’ brings a number of tangible benefits, including:

1. An increase in dwell time 

Numerous studies have shown that scented environments encourage people to linger in that location. In retail, this can correspond to an increase in browsing time and potentially a greater chance of conversion. In hospitality, scent helps to create a sense of comfort and well-being, with guests often reporting an increased sense of relaxation.

Recently, Galeries Lafayette, one of the best-known and influential shopping hubs in Paris, conducted a study that discovered an interesting effect linked to the use of perfumes in commercial environments. The study highlighted that when the sales area was unscented, customers could accurately estimate the time they had spent inside the store. However, once the perfume was released into the environment, consumers tended to give a much lower estimate of the time they had spent inside the store.

2. Increased emotional connection and long-term loyalty

When a brand matches a pleasant fragrance to its identity, it doesn’t just improve the immediate experience of the consumer, but it also lays the foundation for a lasting and meaningful relationship with the brand. 

Research confirms that consumers who are emotionally connected to a brand have a higher customer lifetime value compared to those who are simply satisfied. A personalised perfume that can convey comfort, energy or any other distinctive feature that matches a product or brand can become a sensory element capable of strengthening brand image and retaining the audience.

Smell also plays an important role in brand recall with 75% of everyday emotions apparently evoked by olfactory stimuli, a much higher percentage compared to visual and auditory stimuli. People also remember what they smell with 65% accuracy, even one year after the event, a higher percentage compared to images, dropping to 50%  after only three months.

3. Increased value perception

The strategic addition of a fragrance to a retail environment can profoundly influence the customer’s perception of the brand’s value. Stores and areas that are scented with brand-consistent fragrances convey a sense of quality, attention to detail, and sophistication, even when the product or service offered remains unchanged.

A study conducted by the University of Paderborn in a sporting goods shop showed that the introduction of a pleasant fragrance generated a 14.8% increase in the propensity to buy, a 6% increase in impulse purchases and a 15.9% increase in dwell time in the shop. These changes were linked solely to the presence of a carefully selected fragrance as products remained the same, demonstrating the extent to which the sensory environment influences the perception of value.

Scent marketing, therefore, is not just about making a space more pleasant: it actively changes the way customers perceive what they are buying improving, perceived value and influencing customers’ willingness to pay a potentially higher price.

While today the potential of scent marketing has been relatively untapped, it is fair to assume that what lies before this trend is most certainly a promising future infused with innovation and experimentation. Although today the use of smell is mainly limited to physical contexts, recent examples indicate a willingness to learn towards  the integration of this dimension between the physical and  the digital realm.  

A new trend is in fact currently spreading: digital scenting, the practice of reproducing smells in a virtual or digital way, to create remote multisensory experiences. This is due largely to the growing adoption of intelligent and immersive devices, such as smartphones and VR headsets, which are opening up opportunities for digital sensory interactions. This is gaining traction to the point that experts even predict the arrival of portable diffusion devices connected to apps, which emit fragrances on demand, allowing consumers to test the products physically before buying them.

According to a recent report published by Perfumer & Flavorist, the digital perfume technology market is set to grow from $1.2 billion in 2024 to $2 billion by 2029, with an annual growth rate of 10.5%. This highlights not only the growing interest in innovative solutions, but also more widely the concrete technological feasibility of integrating smell as a whole into the modern digital landscape.

Neuromarketing has made it clear that consumers’ purchasing decisions are not purely rational, but deeply influenced by memory and emotions. In this context, scent marketing proves to be one of the most concrete applications of neuroscience and a powerful tool for achieving a competitive advantage in contemporary marketing. 

Thanks to its ability to directly activate brain areas related to memory and emotion, the sense of smell is positioned as one of the most effective sensory channels that a brand can tap into to build a memorable and engaging experience for its customers. As times change, so do marketing strategies, and  today consumers crave a precious element that digital transformation made increasingly scarce: connection. By leveraging integrated multisensory strategies, brands can strengthen their identity, increase consumer loyalty and improve commercial performance. 

As consumers demand more meaningful and personalized experiences, pivoting to a holistic strategy can bring ample rewards as a result of opening up dialogue between the heart of the consumer and the brand.