Our sense of smell can evoke powerful emotion and reaction. We’ve all walked into a home filled with the aroma of freshly baked cookies and immediately felt warm, cozy and hungry. No doubt you’ve been tempted to try a new fragrance because of the scent strip added to a magazine ad. Some smells make us frightened or uncomfortable—personally, I hate that antiseptic hospital odor…not a pleasant thing.

Well, the power of smell is being pushed even farther. A chain of gas stations in California is pumping more that gas…the smell of fresh coffee is being released to customers as they pump their gas in hopes that they’ll stop in the mini-mart for a cup of java. Another inventor has developed a fan that emits the scent of fresh-baked pies into homes, especially designed for use by home builders and realtors. This summer there will be DVD’s with electronic kits that release smell-o-vision during specific points in a movie, like smoke during a fire scene. Makes the mind boggle…there are some things I much prefer left to the imagination!

The true test will be does smell sell? If it does, expect to see…er, rather smell, a lot more in the future.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 7th, 2007 at 4:52 pm and is filed under Business Insights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.