SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- ScentAndrea Multisensory Communications LLC is offering gas stations a way to bring customers inside the store using scents.
Knowing that c-stores are dying as long as people can do their gasoline transaction at the gas pump and never go inside, we can provide them with the smell of fresh coffee and donuts at the pump, the company says on its website. While they pump their own gas for five minutes, a sachet will twist in the breeze and put out the smell of great smell of coffee and donuts, with some visual to remind people to [image-nocss] Wake up and smell our coffee' and donuts.
The Santa Barbara, Calif.-based company has developed small fans that emit the smell of freshly brewed coffee. In late 2006, ScentAndrea was finalizing plans to install the fans at stations across Canada, according to a Globe & Mail report.
"If you're a coffee drinker, there's no passing up going in and getting a coffee," Carmine Santandrea, CEO of the scent marketing company told the newspaper.
And Business 2.0 said in March that 100 stations in California will be trying technology.
The magazine reports that Clear Channel is experimenting with scented billboards. USA Today and the Wall Street Journal are set to offer rub-and-sniff newspaper ads. And some retailers are also preparing products with added smell. Wal-Mart is experimenting with DVDs with smell-o-vision, electronic scent wafers that release the odor of a burning building, for example, or a freshly fired gun, at precisely timed moments during the movie.
One occasion where consumers opposed such marketing was a California Milk Processor Board program where bus stations' ads were scented to smell like cookies, in an effort to make people want to drink milk. The transit agency required the ads to be removed when people voiced concerns over allergies and safety. "What it means for the future of scent marketing is stay away from public places, because it's unpredictable what is going to happen," Harald Vogt of the Scent Marketing institute told the Globe & Mail. Private places such as retail stores can use the scents to their advantage, he added.
Santandrea expressed caution: "Our attorneys have told us that as long as the consumer has the choice of moving away from fragrance, we are within the law. But if you do it in a confined space like an airplane or an elevator, you will make people mad."
Click here to view an MSNBC report.
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