298. The Science of Smell: Creating Emotional Connections with Customers (Refreshed Episode)

Welcome to episode 298 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. Today's episode is all about the amazing sense of smell.

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You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here's your host, Melina Palmer.

Hello.

Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. Today's episode is all about our amazing sense of smell. A refreshed episode from very, very early on in the podcast. This originally aired as number 25, and as you know, this is now number 298. I can't believe how quickly we're closing in on 300 episodes and five years.

Of the Brainy crazy.

This coming Friday's episode is number 299. And for it I'm going to be doing an anniversary of sorts which will be celebrating the top downloads of the show over its first five years. We're following that up with an amazing interview with Jonah Berger about his new book, Magic Words that's going to kick off the next hundred episodes. And the five year anniversary episode is with data artist Sarah K. Miller, who I met at south by South Southwest when we were both speaking there earlier this year and who has created a really amazing piece of data art yet to be revealed to showcase our downloads over these first five years of the podcast. Needless to say, there are a few very exciting weeks coming up here on the show. When deciding which episodes to refresh for these milestone weeks, I did quite a bit of internal debate. Should it be one of the top most downloaded episodes that I'm going to be featuring in episode 299? Episode one is still the most downloaded episode of the show, so it could be fun to do a throwback to the very first episode to kick off the next hundred. Or perhaps episode 100 where I talked about my top insight after doing 100 episodes. Or the one year anniversary episode, which was 108, where I gave my top tips for starting a podcast. Something else entirely. In the end, I decided to go a slightly different route, thanks to a suggestion from my wonderful husband Aaron, which was to find a hidden gem, something I think should have gotten more downloads.

Than it has, whether it's a favorite concept or one that doesn't get referenced.

Often, or that just got buried for whatever reason. And after scanning through the back catalog, I decided the series I did on all the Senses is one that was so incredibly fascinating and so important to our lives and how we perceive everything. But I think it was in this really interesting pocket where it was both.

Like, too early and a little bit too late. You know, for those people that are.

Listening just to the first few episodes and they decide to jump around, they might not make it up to 25.

Before they start investigating things.

And it was also so early on that, you know, downloads were just growing. So it's kind of perfectly nestled in.

A way that allowed it to be missed.

And that was a real shame because our senses are so, so, so important.

So I'm doing at least three of.

These episodes now to make sure they get another day in the sun. Today is on the Sense of Smell. This really was one of my very favorite episodes to write, and there are so many fascinating insights from our sense of smell that matter for brands. So here we are. We're going to talk about it today and then next week it's going to be on the sense of hearing. Since Jonah Berger's here talking about magic words and the impact of language, it.

Felt like a good feeling fit.

And then before Sarah K's episode, we're going to refresh the power of touch. This one ties in closely with the idea of data art. I had actually already decided that that was going to be the refresh for that week regardless, far before deciding to do the other two sense episodes. So it helped to solidify the decision to refresh this one today and that one on the sense of hearing next week. Whatever type of business you're in, know that there's value in the sense of smell. There is so much you can lear from this, even if you're selling services and not products, even if you're all online. Trust me, this is so interesting and I can't wait to reshare it with you today. Before we get into that, just in a moment here, don't forget that there are links to related past episodes and books and lots of fascinating articles.

So many for this one.

All waiting for you in the show.

Notes for this episode, which are found.

Within the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 298. All right, let's talk about the sense of smell.

The sense of smell is made up of olfactory bulbs, which are part of the limbic system. Unlike the sense of sight, which brings in information that is relayed and interpreted by the brain to produce vision. The sense of smell is one of our oldest senses and it connects directly to memories and emotions. As infants, smell is one of the first senses we use, and it starts getting really tied to specific emotions and memories. When we're around 5 years old. They say 5 to 10 is sort of your smelling peak. This is going to be important later, so heads up on that. Like sight, our sense of smell is developed through evolution to help our species survive. Predators smell bad to us, and prey, also known as food, smells good things that can harm us and that we should be scared of, which are naturally occurring, not like guns, but animals and things like that are likely to have a smell we do not like, quickly alerting the brain to get out of there as soon as possible. Which is why scent, like our fight or flight response, is tied to the limbic system. As we developed, we could also use our sense of smell to detect our children in the dark of night, which is pretty cool. I don't think I could do that now, do you? One big question you probably have, assuming you haven't done much research on smell, is how it works. I've linked to a succinct little YouTube video from TED Education which gets into all the details of this. But essentially, molecules of items separate from the item in question, like bread baking, and those little pieces travel into our noses and are read by our olfactory epithelium, which are like the taste buds of our noses, and they send a direct message to the brain. Sight, sound, and touch do not have this connection. So they're not as closely linked to memories or emotions as scent is. The process of scent is very closely linked with taste, and having a reduced sense of smell will actually impact the flavor of food. But that is a topic for next week's episode. Adult humans can distinguish between approximately 10,000 unique odors using 40 million different olfactory receptor neurons. As the TED video I linked to explains, the scent of odor A might trigger neurons 3, 427 and 988. And odor B might trigger neurons 8, 76 and 2,496,678. Because it has a direct route to the limbic system, certain scents can trigger that fight or flight, while others bring up vivid memories, and others can make your mouth water. All those different neurons and everything working together, you can see just how complex this can get. With thousands of smells and so many situations, there are many possibilities that are opened up with scent. Scent. Scent is also linked to physical attraction. And our noses are trained to like people who are dissimilar to ourselves, which helps with the creation of healthy offspring. That opposite attract might actually start in our noses. If you've ever wondered why you're attracted to the wrong type of person, consider scent as a big reason why. And while it can be linked to a certain cologne, perfume, or soap, it. It's also on a chemical level. So unfortunately, other than knowing about it, there isn't much to be done in the world of attraction. But over time, you know, we had found before we had really great scientific tests and things like that, that different diseases had different smells. So diabetes was able to have sort of a sweet, sugary smell before we had a way to really test for it, which is fascinating. And as some of you might have heard in the news at different times, there are actually different types of dogs that can smell for cancer and all sorts of different diseases because they have a lot more, as we know, they have a much more keen sense of smell than we do. A really recent study has shown that smell is linked to where, when, and why. And that is why the power of memories and really taking us back can be brought through a powerful scent. While I don't always say the full name of a study on the show, this one is so crazy long and intense, I just feel like I need to share it with you. It was called Hippocampal projections to the anterior olfactory nucleus differentially convey spatiotemporal information during episodic odor memory. Talk about a mouthful. You're welcome that I read and interpreted this for you, so you don't have to. Anyway, being somewhere can trigger a memory with a scent, and smelling something can just really bring you back there. This can be positive, like the smell of your grandmother's perfume reminding you of her warm hugs, or negative, as some studies have linked soldiers from Vietnam who had their PTSD triggered with really vivid memories at the smell of diesel. And associations can differ from one person to another. For example, in one article, the author said he loves the smell of manure, something many of us would think is repulsive. And for him, it's because it brings up fond memories of being involved in 4H as a child. So being able to understand how these memories are formed, and some that would likely be positive for for everyone, or at least a large portion of the population could make a difference. If you're wanting to use these in your branding or throughout your business, you may wonder if there is a time in our lives where we're more likely to form memories when they would be the most powerful. I hinted at this a little bit earlier, but the time when most of our scent memories are formed is when we are about the age of five. Many of our other senses are to adolescence. But again, for smell, it's like 5 to 10 years old. That's really the earliest when children are able to really associate their memories with specific times, places and events. And scent will end up playing a really big role in that. So things that we all love as children, like freshly baked cookies, can be a positive scent whenever we smell them. And that's a reason why they can help to sell homes where you walk in. And it has this really familial family bond sort of a memory that gets triggered if you smell baking cookies. And yes, I know for any of the realtors listening, I have heard from some of you that this has sort of been overplayed. Perhaps that people think that you're trying to trick them, but it doesn't mean that their brain won't have that automatic sense. Even if they think think they're turning it off, you know, it's still there at the base. So that's something to keep in mind. But maybe another scent like chocolate or vanilla, which could also be associated with childhood, could have a similar impact if you didn't want to go the full on cookies route. The ability to form associations does not stop as we get older though. That same manure loving author I mentioned a little bit ago talks about his time running as a teenager, which was when Polo cologne was really popular. He said he loved the smell and would really douse himself in it before he would run and visualize the, you know, running like a, as well as a horse sort of a thing. And so he said to this day, the scent of polo and sweat makes him feel 17 again. And as shown in that Diesel example with the Vietnam veterans, significantly emotional events can tie closer to the sense associated with them because memory, emotions and sense are linked and those can have a new connotation come up as time goes on. So you may be more likely to be triggered by something that happened later in life if it was at a particularly traumatizing time. Even if you had all this experience with Diesel leading up to that moment, you know it made a difference as you got older and can really stick with you. Signature scents for brands or colognes are very complex. For example, Polo, the cologne I just mentioned, includes a mix of about 20 different smells, including coriander, pine leather, jasmine, geranium and frankincense. Also patchouli, which you may or may not have noticed was in there. If you want to find out the ingredients and notes in your favorite perfume or cologne, there is a link in the show Notes if you don't work in marketing or branding, you might not know that scent marketing and scent logos are a thing. When I say the name of some brands though, like Abercrombie and Fitch, the Body Shop, or Lush, you might have had a smell automatically come to your mind. Did you Other brands do this too, but they might not be quite as robust as some of the others I just mentioned. In the case of Lush, I actually have a funny story to show you the power of scent. One of my favorite restaurants is P F Chang's. For those of you who are not in the States, it's a very Americanized Chinese food, but they have great gluten free options and I'm a fan. Anyway, the location I used to visit most in downtown Seattle was next to a Lush for a long time and for any of you unfamiliar with Lush, they sell bath products and you've probably smelled them. If you've ever walked through a mall you it is potent to say the least. I have never purchased anything from Lush or actually gone inside of one that I can recall and would often try to just hold my breath and kind of run past them to get to P F Chang's or any other destination when they were in close proximity because the scent is so powerful. So I more thought of them as an annoyance than anything. Sorry, Lush and a scent keeping me away from getting to the delicious Chinese food awaiting me. And then one day while I was traveling somewhere, I was walking through a mall or somewhere where I walked by a Lush and I could definitely smell it of course. And all of a sudden I felt my mouth start to water and I was craving P F Changs. My brain had associated the scent of Lush with delicious Chinese food and even though I thought I hated it. So just like priming from earlier in the day can impact the way someone interacts with your business, scent priming from other interactions someone has can impact the way they think of your business or how they associate your business in the world. There was a really fascinating article in Inc. Magazine with some amazing results of studies incorporating scent scents in their brands and I'm pretty much just going to read this list to you, but there's a link in the show notes for the full article if you want to check it out. A net cost supermarket in Brooklyn, New York installed scent air machines on the walls to infuse the store with aromas of foods that would entice customers like grapefruit in the produce section or chocolate in the candy aisle. The store's merchandise Coordinator reported that sales went up at least 7% since they were installed. In another study, two identical pairs of shoes were placed in two identical rooms. One was scented with a floral fragrance and the other had no fragrance. And by an 84% margin, customers preferred the shoes in the scented room and estimated their value to be on average $10.33 higher than the identical shoes in the unscented room. In the mid-90s, Dr. Alan R. Hirsch conducted an experiment with scented and unscented slot machines the areas in Las Vegas casino and found that the amount gambled in the scented area increased by more than 45%. As a side note, pretty much every Las Vegas casino has a branded scent that they use. And I know that Monte Carlo they actually bottle and sell sell that that you. If you want to bring the scent of Monte Carlo home, you can bring that in with air fresheners and things like that. So your house can smell like the Monte Carlo all the time. A convenience store next study here that started pumping the smell of coffee near the gas pumps saw coffee purchases increase 300%. Various studies have found that pleasant ambient odors have a variety of positive effects on people's behavior. One study found that shoppers were more willing to help strangers outside of a bakery than a clothing store. Another found people were more willing to help when in the presence of appealing scents like roasting coffee or baking cookies. Researchers from Northumbria University found that subjects performing various information processing tasks did so faster and more accurately when their cubicle was diffused with rosemary essential oil. Volunteers in one other study performed puzzle solving tasks 17% faster after exposure to floral fragrances. And in another study, people can remember a scent and its related memory with 65% accuracy after 12 months. Months, while visual recall was only 50% accurate after just four months. So the scent memory was 65% accurate after a year and that visual was down to 50% after just four months. Lastly, 63% of MRI patients who inhaled a vanilla aroma reported reduced anxiety before a procedure, compared to just 4% of patients who didn't. That was 63% to 4% feeling reduced anxiety. Clearly, scent has a lot of benefit for brands when done right. But you can't just throw a scent around and expect it to do wonders. The association matters. A feminine scent in a women's clothing store will do better to increase sales than if it was in a sporting goods store or in a restaurant. And the scent of lemon is more likely to encourage people to order seafood in a restaurant that sells it. But it can also Encourage people to clean up after themselves in a different context. If you have a physical location, the scent you infuse makes a huge difference. And you want to make sure it ties in with your goals. And know that even if there are a lot of scents in a location, you can typically only smell one one item over everything else. With brands that use scent marketing, for example, do you ever smell anything but coffee in a Starbucks, or hot buttered popcorn at the movie theater, or fries at McDonald's? Some of their other smells could be very powerful, like pizza, if they were allowed to emanate. But effort is put into making sure the prominent scent, the one they want to be part of their brand, the memories they want to be tying to, they want that to stand out. So that is what you smell. There are companies you can hire just like those that provide music in your location. And actually some of them offer both services who are expert in the science of scent branding to help you choose the best signature scent for you. It does cost money, yes, but it can make a big difference when executed correctly. In one of my old jobs at the credit union, I was looking into scent marketing, and because we had orange in our branding, I wanted to make sure we used more of a citrusy scent when we were starting to look into this, to trigger the association between the color of orange and the scent of orange and how that can all come together. So there are a lot of different things you have to think about, and that's why you would want to hire an expert who knows all the different associations of what one cent could trigger in one person versus somebody else and how that impacts your brand. As you've seen from the outlined examples, this is used by hotels, airlines, grocery stores, movie theaters, restaurants, department stores, casinos, and everything in between to create an.

Experience for the visitors.

And it's not the same. So from one grocery store to the next, from one restaurant to another, from one department store or movie theater to another, it's not going to always be the same because it has to do with what they're trying to evoke. And if you're trying to buy cars, new car smell, it's a thing, right? The right smell can do wonders. One study looked specifically into hotels to determine what helped to make people want to stay at a particular chain. Again, visual stimuli mattered, of course, but scent had a huge impact as well. Think about it. Have you ever walked into a hotel room that looked beautiful, but had it smell like cigarette smoke or mold or mothballs? I think we all have. And as a side note, when I said some of those words. Did you feel your nose crinkle up a little? Let's try again. Moldy, mildewy, mothballs. Anything that shows the power of scent, even when you can't smell. So back to this particular study. If you go to a hotel room and it's gorgeous, just beautiful, but it smells like dead fish, you will not want to stay there again or even that night, probably. Bad scents can impact all sorts of behavior and make it difficult for you to really focus on or do anything else. Another study found that when exposed to good smells, subjects had greater recall of brands, particularly ones they had never heard of. So fake brands that were used in the test and when there was a bad smell, there was almost no recall or attention at all on anything. As I've said in my it's not about the cookie series, a good smell can be positive, but a really bad smell, like burnt popcorn in an office, can make it so everyone loses focus and can't pay attention on anything. And this is not just unique to humans. Rats have been shown to learn things faster when they are associated with scents they like. At the end of the day, our world and the way we think about it impacts everything we do. Our memories. And particular scents can trigger emotions. Have you ever noticed at the holidays, like when I'm recording this episode right now, go figure, that all sorts of different types of stores, from grocery stores to craft stores or toy stores, they will have cinnamon scented pine cones typically, but items for sale in really large baskets or bags, bags right by the front entry of the store. The smell is very noticeable when you walk in and it is absolutely intentional. They want everyone to walk in and smell that scent, which triggers memories of the holidays and generosity and gift giving and it can impact your buying behavior. And don't forget just saying the right words or showing an image of someone smelling an item and either smiling or making a funny face can trigger mirror neurons and scent memory. I've mentioned mirror neurons a couple times on the podcast in the past. There will be an episode on this coming up soon, I promise. Essentially this is when if you see someone get a picture paper cut, your brain reacts as if you got a paper cut. It lights up in a certain way. These are mirror neurons reacting. I'm going to talk about this more actually on next week's episode on Taste, which is another reason why you don't want to miss that one. Even if you do not sell food items that people can eat. Mirror neurons are also the reason why your nose might have crinkled up a little bit when I said the words moldy, musty mothballs earlier. And maybe they did it again just now. But this can be a good thing if you like the Food Network, for example, they are tasked with using trigger words that can influence food memories to make people hungry or want to try out a certain recipe. You'll notice they tell stories of their childhood and how their grandmother used to make whatever this was, and they remembered sitting around the table and all these different memories they're bringing in to help trigger your memories, emotions, scents and taste that all tie in together. And they choose those words very carefully to help paint a picture for your brain. And really strong scents we know and love can be triggered without words at all. Watching bacon sizzle on TV could make you crave it even when you can't smell it. But you sure feel like you can, don't you? If you don't sell food and you don't have a physical location, it is still important to know the power of scent. Putting lemons in your ads can trigger different cleanliness, sourness, carefree summer days, drinking lemonade. And you can use those emotions to prime behavior if you want to, but if you use them willy nilly, it could absolutely backfire. So you want to be smart, strategic and intentional with any of those words or images or smells to make sure they're in alignment with your overall brand plan and the intent of the message.

So what got your brain buzzing as you learned about the sense of smell today? For me, as I said at the top of the show, I really think this was such a fascinating episode and one that has so much impact on our buying behavior. To refresh on some of those amazing tidbits you learned about today. Humans can distinguish between 10,000 unique odors using 40 million different olfactory receptor neurons. The sense of smell is closely related to our memories, and nostalgia has so much impact on buying behavior. So tapping into the sense of smell is really impactful for brands. Remember how the scent of coffee at the gas station increased sales of coffee by 300%, much more impactful than an advertisement would have done. And remember all the amazing impacts of specific scents. Vanilla reducing anxiety. Rosemary increasing productivity. Lemon making you more likely to clean up or order seafood. This is why context always matters. We relate scents in a complex web just like anything else. So understanding where you are, what you want the customer to do, where they are, what they're doing, and other key details are so important to understand when you choose scents to align with your brand experience. While you may love the scent of freshly baking cookies or hate the scent of pine trees. It's also important to know that you aren't your own top customer and you're not in the buying mindset when you're deciding what you're going to align with that experience. So you want to be sure you prime with the right scents that align with the experience or action, regardless of your own personal preferences.

Unless it's to eliminate a bad odor.

Because that will almost never be a bad choice. To get more tips and insights on applying the sense of smell and all your senses into business, they're heavily featured in the priming chapter in Part two of my first book, what your Customer Wants and Can't Tell youl, which is linked for you in the Show Notes. Of course, if you want to expand your thoughts on this concept and dig in even more on the scent and how to apply them to your work, go ahead and flip to chapter six in your copy of what your customer Wants and can't tell you. And of course, don't forget about all those resources, including related past episodes, books and many articles. If you want to really dig in.

On the sense of smell.

They're all waiting for you in the show notes@the brainybusiness.com 298 and just like that, episode 298 on the Sense of Smell is done. Join me Friday for a brand new episode showcasing the top downloaded episodes of the first five years of the Brainy Business podcast. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it.

Until then, thanks again for listening and.

Learning with me, and remember to be thoughtful.

Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.