I can almost taste it!

McCain Foods is using multi-sensory, interactive bus shelter ads to entice consumers to buy their microwave baked potatoes. The bus shelters, which will appear across the UK, are using the senses of sight, smell and touch to communicate the deliciousness of their Ready Baked Jackets.

The McCain bus shelters will feature 2-foot high fiberglass potatoes. Once someone presses a button, the shelter will be heated like a warm baked potato and will smell like one too. The company expects most people to press the button for heat in the cold month of February when the campaign rolls out. The shelters will also dispense money off coupons to make it easier for people to try the product.

"I like your jeans - they smell great!"

Naked & Famous, a high-end Canadian blue jean company The jeans are called , now has scented jeans. The jeans, called “Weird Guy Scratch n’ Sniff Raspberry Scented”, are coated with raspberry scent, which is then baked into the fabric. The company says that the scent lasts for five washings.

Naked & Famous specializes in “raw” Japanese denim and incorporattes more exotic  fabrics into their jeans, such as cashmere, kevlar and wool.

The raspberry scented jeans sell for 150 Euros, or around $165 US.

Like what you smell? Check your DNA!

You may be familiar with the research study showing that people are more attracted to the scent of people of the opposite sex with dissimilar MHC genes. The explanation for this is that scent is the vehicle for making mate choices with the strongest possibility of producing healthy offspring. A new research study, however, asks whether these same MHC genes influence fragrance preferences, and they found that the answer is yes.

Some of the fragrance elements tested were preferred by a majority of the study participants, and some less so. For example, tolu, a scent sourced from a South American tree and smelling somewhat like vanilla, was the highest rated. On the other side of the spectrum, vetiver, a woody, earthy scent from an Indian grass, was rated the lowest. However, the relative preference for the fragrances was heavily influenced by the participant’s MHC gene makeup.

Scientists speculate that the fragrance that people like somehow mirrors or enhances their natural body smell, and therefore serves the same purpose as identifying a potential mate through smell. They say it is too soon to use this data to formulate new fragrances, but suggest that once more data is collected, it may be possible to create scents based on genetics.

As explained by Dr. Rachel Herz at ScentWorld last month, however, odor preferences are strongly linked to an individual’s past emotional connection to that particular smell. Because people are constantly having new emotional experiences, fragrance associations may change over time.

Nature or nurture? Yes!

Many research studies have pointed out the large range of scent preferences by culture. For example, Asian cultures find the smell of certain cheeses repulsive, while Europeans enjoy or at least put up with their distinct aromas. In Ethiopia, the cattle-raising Dassanetch people love the smell of cow urine and manure and use them on their bodies as personal fragrances. Some studies have shown that familiar smells are considered the most pleasant, so odor preferences would naturally vary by locale and the smells that can be found in different places (salt air, different kinds of native trees, flowers and fruit, various kinds of spices and cooking, etc.).

However, scientists have recently discovered that nasal molecules that detect odor are grouped together in the nose according to the degree of pleasantness. So receptors that sense a delicious smell of baking bread may be near in location to those that sniff out a rose’s fragrance, while sensor molecules that can smell garbage might be far away but close to those that can catch a whiff of dirty diapers. The study was conducted by Noam Sobel of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel and was reported in Nature Neuroscience on September 25th.

While scientists pointed out that odor preferences are extremely malleable according to the individual’s learned association with different fragrances, this study indicates that human beings have innate odor preferences. This may confer an evolutionary advantage, by for example, helping newborn babies hone in on mother’s milk, or helping us avoid rancid food.

Fortunately for consumers, however, the study has been found to be seriously flawed. For one thing, it is lacking sufficient detail to reproduce the study, making non-specific generalizations. Some of the missing information is the brands and models of the equipment used, the operational settings, and the controls used.

One of the pollutants cited, benzene, is naturally present in both indoor and outdoor air, but is not used in fragranced products. How then, can those products be the cause of increased levels of benzene? In fact, the data in the study shows that benzene levels were actually lowered when the so-called “dangerous” products were used. Levels of another cited toxin, acetaldehyde, was shown to be similar or higher than those in the study results when no products were used at all.

The conclusion? “Political activism should never trump good science and common sense. Consumers can continue to use laundry and fabric care products like they do every day: safely and effectively.”

For more details, please see the RIFM press release on the subject.

• Scent marketing solution providers
• Manufacturers in the industry, including fragrance houses, diffuser manufacturers and scented products and technologies
• Ad agencies and marketing/branding firms
• Hospitality
• Retail
• Consumer packaged goods
• Restaurant chains
• Government
• Healthcare

Let us know which  journals, newspapers, blogs or any other publication you read for your scent or marketing related business, by commenting below or sending us an email. If you write for or have an editorial contact within any of these publications, all the better! We welcome all help and suggestions.

Once the selection process begins in the fall, fans will be directed to www.selenagomezperfumes.com to vote on the scent components they think should be in the perfume. As a guideline, Ms. Gomez has hinted that the scent should be “romantic and sweet.”

What do you think of crowdsourced fragrance creation? Comment below!

Smelling good to do good

The latest retail chain to use scent marketing is not an upscale department store; it’s Goodwill Stores. The non-profit has hired Prolitec to scent over 40 stores in Wisconsin and Illinois, after they successfully tested the concept in four stores.

The stores will use a signature scent consisting of sweet orange and honeysuckle, designed to create a crisp, clean ambiance. Research has shown that a pleasant ambient scent results in consumers spending more time, and ultimately more money in a store. In the case of Goodwill, the nice smell is part of a plan to raise more money for the charity and those it serves.

The two organizations serve the international scent marketing industry, but that is where the similarity ends.

Scent Marketing Institute
The Scent Marketing Institute’s mission is to support the scent marketing industry by:

• Providing education to scent companies about the latest innovations, research and technology
• Expanding the overall market by promoting the use and benefits of scent marketing to brand owners, marketing agencies and the press
• Defending the use of fragrance whenever it comes under attack, whether by scent hating individuals, in the media or in legislation
• Serving as a unified voice of the scent marketing community

While SMI provides research and education to scent marketing companies, many of its activities and focus are outward facing, to promote, explain and defend scent marketing to those outside the industry (brand owners, marketing agencies, the media and government organizations).

Membership in SMI is open to any dues-paying company that manufactures, uses or sells scent, fragrance, scented products or scent-related equipment.

Independent Aroma Group

The IAG is a buying group for the scent marketing industry. It is a commercially focused, transaction based group. Its mission is to facilitate and encourage buying and selling among group members.

IAG’s membership is limited by territory and applications must be reviewed and approved before the applicant is accepted.

As you can see, the two groups do not overlap in their goals and therefore do not compete. Membership in one group does not preclude the other.

It is our view that if you are in the scent marketing industry, you need to be a part of the Scent Marketing Institute. Because scent marketing is a growing field, any initiatives that expand the overall demand for scent marketing benefit everyone in the industry. The more support we have from members, the more we can do to help you.

We hear you, loud and clear!

Just fill out this brief survey, and you may win free admission to the 2011 ScentWorld Expo!

The Scent Marketing Institute is here to serve you, so please feel free to contact us any time you have a question, concern, suggestion or complaint.