I’ve noticed a growing trend in the past couple of years of companies installing air diffusers in large areas in the commercial realm– think hotel lobbies or retail space- to make them smell, well, pleasant. It’s part of a whole trend of “scent marketing,” which we can look at as a subset of ambiance marketing, which, in turn, is a subset of behavioral marketing. This was one of the things I found most fascinating during my days as a one-time B-school bro.
And, because I’m a fragrance nerd, you all now have the pleasure of reading about it!
The Growth of Scent Marketing
Ambiance marketing isn’t new— growing at a rate substantially exceeding average GDP growth- but the scent component seems to be relatively new. A couple of sources I looked at led me to conclude that the growth of this specific, smelly subset of ambiance marketing is a hypercorrection to the era of COVID, in which Americans had their sense of taste and smell challenged by an unfamiliar virus, and during which time we got more used to the lemon-fresh scent of Lysol than to natural scents.
Post-COVID Olfactory Hangover?
In Horizontal Vertigo (2021), a love letter to Mexico City, journalist and cultural critic Juan Villoro wrote that the COVID19 pandemic broke the spirits of Mexicans who, in dining out, value, above all else, cleanliness and condiments— replacing those things with mayonesa and Clorox. We can understand why we’d want to feel like we’re out and about in a pleasantly-scented natural world again, instead of the lab-manufactured, “throw some more linalool in that mixture” realm.
Of course, most of these scents are anything but natural– they’re mostly defined by synthetic, long-lived, large molecular weight molecules that, to our olfactory receptors smell close enough to things like sandalwood, guaiacol, or what have you. I have noticed this everywhere ranging from the lobby of the 1928 Raphael Hotel, part of the Autograph Collection by Marriott in Kansas City, to the Moxy in Minneapolis (for NPC24), to our local Goodwill in metro Detroit.
Why scents at all? Why woody scents?
The Olfactory Superhighway to Memory
Scent marketing is popular because scent-memory linkage is, for whatever evolutionary reason, the strongest of all of the sensory attachments. This has been well-understood for a long time, and that’s why Marcel Proust wrote several sprawling novels about smelling a damn cookie.
It also sometimes functions in peculiar ways– there is a particular, synthetic floral scent that I encounter once in awhile that reminds me of the time we used to have scented trash bags, to the point that I now associate that synthetic perfume compound with the particular stink of municipal solid waste.
I’m thinking that woody scents are popular because they channel the biophilic, that is, seeking to emulate lifelike, “natural” processes. As humans, we are more likely to spaces that have wood rather than steel paneling. It’s why I positively detest the “cool grey and white” of the modern house-flipper aesthetic and think that it needs to be cast into the pit, for it does not spark joy. It’s also unnatural. Nature doesn’t produce greys except in geology or for six months of Great Lakes Winter.
Questing for the Biophilic
On our trip to Mexico City, we enjoyed a few spaces that had trees growing indoors, or spaces that were kinda sorta indoor but kinda sorta outdoor, perhaps unconditioned but covered. These are things you can only do in a climate that is temperate year-round and never gets too hot and never gets cold.
In a place like Goodwill, where products are cleaned and laundered, they still may have a sort of “used clothes” scent that the business is trying to combat. I’m not sure why this matters, because I wash my stuff after I buy it anyway– but it may incentivize the shoppers who refuse to buy used clothes because “that’s gross.” I really don’t know.
Still, a cheaper way to mimic biophilia than installing expensive wood floors that then have to be constantly maintained.
The molecular chemistry is interesting, too: some of these molecules are able to create a sort of film on surfaces without actually gumming them up as smelly molecules from an oil might. This is not just a product of the molecular shape, but also of the type of compound– oils behave differently from things like volatile compounds or alcohols.
It’s not a trend I hate, since I like smelly things. But I do wish we had a bit more attention to actual biophilia and biomimicry. Less vinyl plank, less offgassing of volatile compounds in carpet adhesives. More wool, more wood, better IAQ, and more nature!
A final conclusion? I am also thinking that the marketing industry is kinda sorta out of control.