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POP Aromas – Modern Marketing
Peppermint (top) and fine-leafed Corsican mint (bottom). Photo by Michael Thompson. www.ars.usda.gov
Peppermint, which is a big import from America, is a refreshing scent and flavour that has benefited from a great deal of popularity for a very long time, whether it is employed by manufacturers advertising it as a mouth anti-odorant or deodorant of other body parts that we may well actively select to buy.
Many of us will associate perfume with scent or a product containing pleasant and healing aromas of flowers and herbs we choose and enjoy, but POP Aromas are in a different category. POP Aromas are ‘Point-of-Purchase’ odours used usually unbeknownst to the public to induce them to buy the seller’s product in various scenarios.
The most recent of a long line of artificial ‘aromas’ used for POP inducement is being used to market second-hand motorcars by a car dealership with 440 UK outlets to give them the ‘new-car’ smell, which is atomizer sprayed like a room air freshener. Experts have mixed the odours of leather, air freshener and fresh plastic because a scent “can affect consumer attitudes” – in other words the ‘odour’ is mind altering.1
The Marketing fraternity know this method of sales incentive works because Supermarkets have been using this POP Aroma method for years by spraying the aroma of ‘fresh bread’ around their Bakery sections.
So why are we so susceptible? The reasons are ancient. In the hunter-gatherer stage of Homo sapiens evolution, smell-sensitivity was originally greater than sight and olfaction2 transported through to the Limbic system of the brain, the ‘old brain’, is still the first part of our brains to develop in the womb. Our earlier evolution to recognize warning signals for ‘fright and flight’ depended far more on our sense of smell.
Our brains are complex in the extreme. However, the Limbic system is a group of brain structures that includes the hippocampus, dentate gyrus, septal areas, amygdale, and parts of the diencephalon. It is these structures that are associated with autonomic functions, such as arousal (‘fright and flight’) or motivation, emotion, recent memory and olfaction.
Olfaction operates via hair cells, cilia, the receptors in the olfactory epithelium, which respond to particular chemicals. In humans, there are about 40 million olfactory receptors. You will observe that dogs are particularly scent-sensitive, because they have about 2 billion olfactory receptors! Although it is not known what actually triggers olfactory reception, whether it is a chemical molecule’s shape or size or an electrical charge, the electrical activity produced in the in the cilia is transmitted to the olfactory bulb and thence to the olfactory tract. It is then transmitted to the brain areas such as the olfactory cortex, hippocampus, amygdala and hypothalamus, or sections of the brain that are part of the Limbic system.2 So there you have it – scent can affect our behaviour!
It is estimated that there are about 400,000 odours in the world, each one of which can influence mood and behaviour. It is a well known fact that if several women of ovulating age are massed into one environment their monthly cycles synchronize in a relatively short period, but it has not been stated why - could be a matter of ‘scent’? However, it has been demonstrated that extracts from male sweat aromas can affect the regularity of a women’s menstrual cycle, i.e. there is a mutal pheromonal influence between the sexes. It can be shown that male pheromones (androstenol/androstenone) from male sweat have a direct impact on female menstrual cycles and ovulation. Additionally, female pheromones (copulins), present in vaginal secretions, influence male perception of females and may induce hormonal changes in males.4
It is clear that the effects of an ‘aroma’ can be very powerful indeed. It is, therefore, not surprising that if our entire reproductive process can be influenced by our sense of smell, other areas of the behavioural brain can respond to a whole panorama of fragrances for good or ill.
Aromas can help induce the consumer to spend money, or generate a ‘feel good factor’ in difficult circumstances. On the one hand, the new science of smell may be used to create optimal shopping environments. “When the air quality is pleasant, so is the shopping experience. If people feel good, they buy more.”5
The key to the marketers’ function is to present and take a marketing message all the way to the cash till. The vast majority of POP methods have traditionally been based on visual appeal, the Supermarkets being in the vanguard of POP Aroma for sales. On the other hand, smells by memory association can have a longer lasting effect:
“You've just disembarked from a long and exhausting flight, and are still waiting for your onward connection, so the smell of freshly cut grass and the tangy scent of the sea are invigorating. … In fact, you haven't even left the airport. You're in the British Airways business class lounge at Heathrow, and the fragrances you're savoring have been specially created to enhance your comfort. "It's all about making people feel refreshed and uplifted," … And, of course, it's all about encouraging you to book your next flight with BA, too.”6 This makes POP Aromas a valuable subconscious influential marketing tool.
POP Aromas are not new, if not wide-spread as yet. Marketeers know that the public have got cute and are suffering from visual advertising over-load and saturation, editing out very quickly what does not grab their immediate own particular interest.
POP Aromas are designed to entice customers to linger longer. It is interesting that the best results come from an almost homoeopathic level, ‘less is more’, because according to Von Kempski: “The strongest effect comes when the fragrance is barely discernible”.7 In some cases it is claimed that they are attempting to create a particular environment rather than influence people directly.8 A Corporation’s Brand Smell may yet become as important as it’s Logo!
Are POP Aromas ethical? Mr Paul Fitzgerald, Co-ordinator with the Manchester anti-consumerism pressure group ‘Enough’ thinks the whole thing stinks! He argues that “one-fifth of the world’s population already consumes over 80% of the natural resources and that this technology is just going to add to the problems.”9
However there is a lighter brighter side to the use of olfaction to as an inducer. Since the time of the Egyptians, when perfume was considered the same as medicine, humans have used scents to alter their minds. Wonderful aromas such as Frankincense and Myrrh are still used in churches throughout the world to bring a sense of tranquillity and aid meditation. Queen Cleopatra was not a renowned ‘beauty’, yet her use of cosmetics and seductive scents made her the most attractive woman of her time.
Lavender (Lavandula officinalis) is one of those scents that have come down the ages to improve our lives. In more recent years its essential oils have been scientifically recognized, together with many others, to have healing properties. The scent of Lavender is often used in Clinics and Maternity Departments for its calming effects. It is a pity that in these days of lack of hospital hygiene leading to infections that we do not smell the scent of ‘disinfectant’.
Formerly the smell of disinfectant was associated with a ‘fear’ of hospitals; its lack is now more a cause to fear infection. Tea-Tree essential oil (Melaleuca alternifolia) is known to kill M.R.S.A. (methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus). It has a highly medicinal scent, but there are others that are anti-microbial, fungicidal, bactericidal and anti-viral that have less medicinally strong in aromas, such as woody-herbal smelling Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), which is invigorating and may help aid recovery. There’s a great deal more benefits to be found in the use of Aromatherapeutic essential oils than a ‘nice’ smell and they deserve greater respect from the medical establishment.
For example, an under-staffed NHS has ‘time’ concerns when it comes to hand-washing. The latest innovation to encourage staff to wash their hands more frequently, using an antiseptic agent in the form of a gel, gel gloves and/or wipes to be placed near each patient’s bed and at other locations on hospital wards ‘at points of care’, was advocated by John M Boyce MD in 1999 and should be implemented. This strategy, now promoted by the NPSA (National Patient Safety Agency), is only partially up for adoption, using alcohol-rub, after a six month pilot of the ‘Clean Your Hands’ campaign in six UK hospitals showed that staff increased their hand-washing rate after contact with patients from an average of 28% of times to 76%. Nationally this could save 450 lives and £140,000,000 annually; it might cut annual infections in hospitals by 15%-50%.10
Another interesting modern use of Aroma-therapy is ‘inhalers’. Apart from the traditional stuffy blocked nose decongestants, there are new forms of inhalers which claim that within seconds, simply by inhaling, you’ll experience how scent can arouse feelings, suppress urges and even provide healing benefits by delivering messages directly to the brain’s olfactory nerve and limbic system.
The inhalers aromas are not artificial chemical compounds, but made exclusively from natural essential oils, are vouched to be safe and non-habit forming. Inhalers on offer, for instance, have lead scents: essential oils of Bergamot and Frankincense are used to ease the discomfort and side effects for those quitting smoking. Students may be interested to perk up their brain power with Neroli (Orange blossom – Citrus aurantium var. amara), which combined with Basil (Ocimum basilicum) and Spearmint (Mentha spicata) are said to also help combat depression, anxiety and weariness – could be useful to overburdened housewives too. Perhaps the most topical inhaler aid would be one that is said to suppress appetite! Here inhaling refreshing fragrance of springtime peppermint (Mentha piperita) and zesty grapefruit (Citrus paradisi) is said to naturally stimulate digestion and relieve the side effects of hunger and help curb appetite when used at mealtimes.11 For those with a weight-loss problem it’s worth a try.
The big difference between POP Aromas and Essential Oil Inhalers demonstrates the problems that POP Aromas may encounter, because there is no ethical problem with the latter, you can see and choose what you are going to inhale and choose to buy it for its particular scent, as one would perfume, without a clandestine ‘blanket aroma’ being used subliminally to persuade and influence your brain’s decision-making.
COMMENT: It is remarkable that those going blind appear to develop or swop the acuteness of vision-sensitivity to the sense of smell and/or hearing for the loss of sight. The younger generation, who assail their ears with continual loud noise, are inclined to ‘shout’ louder than their parents. This may be because from the generation before them ‘hearing’ has been successively ‘dumbed down’ by applying constant loud noise to the ears since the invention of transistor and other forms of Walkmans’ era. Children are also affected by the strength of noise vibrations from within the womb, which may or may not have some connection with the shortened ‘attention span’ of kids today. Perhaps due to ‘sound over-load’ it points to the future generation to become far more susceptible to ‘scent’ than visual forms of advertising or inducement to purchase. This would constitute a gradual turnaround of ‘sight’ not being the total primary ‘locus of focus’ it once was.
Albeit, there will be researchers beavering away in the background on POP Aromas, there is one non-food Supermarket chain, which shall be nameless, that appears to use a sweaty smell in the air, which I find personally offensive. I don’t go into the shop or I get quickly out of it. Sweat may be an enticing highly sexual scent for some, but perhaps it’s the knowledge that it goes stale very fast with the aid of bacteria that gives it that ‘get away’ effect. Maybe that particular sweaty smell is the wrong gender – who knows!
References: 1. The Mail on Sunday 22.8.2004. 2. The sense of smell, called olfaction, involves the detection and perception of chemicals floating in the air. Chemical molecules enter the nose and dissolve in mucous within a membrane called the olfactory epithelium. In humans, the olfactory epithelium is located about 7 cm up and into the nose from the nostrils. 3. Neuroscience for Kids … http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/nosek.html 4. [Battle of odours: significance of pheromones for human reproduction] [Article in German] Grammer K, Jutte A. Ludsig-Boltzmann-Institut fur Stadt-Ethologie, Vienna, Austria. Gynakol Geburtshilfliche Rundsch. 1997: 37(3): 150-3. 5. ‘Time Magazine’ cover story, 2nd August 1999, Vol. 154, No. 5. Reported by Desmond Butler, Helen Gibson and Kate. Quote: Diotima von Kempski, D.V.K. Dusseldorf, scent and ventilation designer for retail clients in Europe, Asia and the USA. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid. B.O.C. Gases, Guildford, Surry – Duncan Roberts, Sales & Marketing Manager. 9. Ibid. 10. Annals of Internal Medicine - ‘It is Time for Action: Improving Hand Hygiene in Hospitals’ 19th January 1999: Vol. 130 Issue 2: pages 153-155. Bedside gels ‘to fight superbugs’ BBC New Online 31st August, 2004. 11. Aroma-Works Pocket Inhalers - http://www.amazing-solutions.com/aroma-works.html
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