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During a weekend in late spring, New York shoppers on the prowl for digital playthings unwittingly stumbled into a covert operation on the olfactory frontier. Riding up the escalator to the third floor of the Shops at Columbus Circle, they encountered a scent like that of a young metrosexual primed for a night at Soho House -- a unisexy, modern fragrance along the lines of Calvin Klein's cK One.

It wasn't emanating from one of the many European tourists cruising the glossy vertical mall or escaping a promotional event at the nearby Aveda store. It was the seductive smell of consumer electronics.

Samsung, the Korean electronics giant, was conducting a test of its new signature fragrance in its Samsung Experience concept store. Researchers waylaid shoppers leaving the store to grill them on whether they thought the scent was "stylish," "innovative," "cool," "passionate," or "cold," and, more important, whether the scent made them feel like hanging around the shop a little longer.

Amit Patel, 22, a pharmacist visiting from the UK, was unimpressed. He hadn't noticed the smell but had a strong opinion about the company's priorities. "I think Samsung should stick to what it's good at: making gadgets," he said.

But Nicole Snoeker, 25, a Dutch tourist, was charmed. "I thought the store had just opened," she said. "It smelled very fresh and new." Plus, she volunteered, she probably lingered a bit more than she had intended. "I felt relaxed. It put me in the right mood. That's important in shops nowadays."

And if the company is concerned about reaching hip, young electronics-savvy consumers, it hit pay dirt with 11-year-old Simon Clarke, a precocious redhead from Connecticut who admitted he was already a gadget hound. "I love the smell of technology," he said. "It smells stimulating."

Samsung's bid for the hearts and noses of electronics buffs comes not a moment too soon. Already, across town, the rival SonyStyle store has staged a preemptive strike in the odoriferous battle, with a shop scented with notes of mandarin orange and vanilla. "We wanted to add one extra dimension to differentiate our store from the rest," says Christine Belich, executive creative director of the SonyStyle stores, noting that the company is particularly interested in attracting female shoppers to its 16 mall locations. The company is also exploring a way to make the store's Madison Avenue windows radiate the scent, so passersby might be lured inside to sniff out a laptop or new digital camera.

Sensory branding, the idea that brands should engage consumers on a variety of touch points, is hardly new. There's the visual: Consumers now know instantly that a giant yellow arch indicates the proximity of cheeseburgers, or a certain robin's-egg-blue box signifies a classy token of affection. There's the auditory: A distinctive ring tone tells surrounding theatergoers that the offender is a customer of Nokia or Motorola. And a startup bong lets nearby latte sippers know whether the writer huddled over the laptop in the corner bought her operating system from Microsoft or Apple.

The idea of using a signature scent as a brand identifier has been slower to catch on outside the fashion industry (where certain retailers, such as Victoria's Secret, have long used fragrance as part of the sensory environment in their stores). But as it becomes ever more difficult to gain consumers' attention in an increasingly cluttered environment, more and more companies are looking to fragrance to help distinguish their brands from the competition.