Scenting and Branding…. yes this is a thing!

M. Brown, in a recent article in The New York Times reviews recent efforts by many to link their locations/products/services to specific scents in consumers’ minds (“When You Think About Your Credit Card, Does a Fragrance Come to Mind?” 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/20/realestate/mastercard-fragrance-scent.html ). Over the last few decades, many sorts of organizations have been actively scentscaping environments they control to make desired outcomes (whether that’s increased sales or improved cognitive performance or something else entirely) more likely.

As Brown reports in The New York Times article “Corporations are now mimicking fashion designers and hiring development firms to create a signature scent. . . . Companies using bespoke scents in their spaces are nothing new. Hotels that want to exude a sense of luxurious relaxation have been designing their own candles for decades, and no one who stepped into an Abercrombie & Fitch store in the 2000s will ever forget the olfactory sting of the brand’s musky cologne that fogged their retail stores.  But smell is increasingly becoming part of the brand strategy for companies in unexpected industries, as brands jostle for precious slivers of market share and especially as workers and clients begin to trickle back into office spaces. So the unlikeliest of companies are joining the scent trend. . . . How a place smells is now something that companies need to think about in the same way they pick out chairs or choose wallpaper.”  In The New York Times article Brown discusses, for example, Mastercard’s search for a signature scent for its experience centres.

For information on effectively scentscaping your home, your office, or somewhere else, read these articles.