Smells Like Brand Spirit

And many marketers would argue that adding a pleasant scent to a product or a retail environment is no more coercive than installing marble fixtures or flattering lighting. When H.H. Gregg, an appliance retailer in the southeast, planned to refurbish some of its stores, it researched layout, color, and lighting, as well as scent, to create a more congenial shopping experience. The faint smell of home cooking -- apple pie, sugar cookies -- has helped boost sales 33% in the remodeled stores. "We're not treating this like a head shop, where you've got incense all over," says Jim Newell, director of marketing. "It's subtle. You don't want people to go, 'Whoa! Pie!' That would put them off a little bit."

Business is booming at ScentAir Technologies Inc., a Charlotte, North Carolina- based company that manufactures the device that delivers the stores' aromas, says CEO David Van Epps. "I used to have to knock on a lot of doors to get somebody to take a meeting," he says. "Now I'm hearing from some of the biggest names in retailing, fashion, and packaged goods." Moving beyond the realtor's homespun advice to stick cookies in the oven before an open house, Van Epps's company now has a whole division focused on the real-estate market, an industry that he says is, well, salivating for his product. "Who has time to make a pie every time you want to sell a house?" he asks. Van Epps predicts his company's business will easily quadruple in the next two to three years.

"Scent is extremely powerful and dangerous if used wrong," a branding expert says. "I've wanted to have a dialogue on the implications of this, but nobody's talking."

Still, Lindstroem, who has been barnstorming the globe with his sensory-branding seminars, expresses a nagging sense of unease as companies flock to this latest branding trend. "Scent is extremely powerful and dangerous if used wrong," he says. "So far, we're not advanced enough to use it that way, but I've wanted to have a dialogue on the implications of this, and nobody's talking."

There is, for example, a portion of the population that is allergic to scent. "They can be quite militant," says Spangenberg. "It can get ugly." In addition, fragrance has the ability to elicit unconscious responses that marketers may not intend. The hype surrounding scent is "out ahead of the science," he warns. "We don't know enough about it."

Two miles from the Magic Kingdom, in the Disney-designed town of Celebration, Sally Grady is on a mission to make having medical tests as fun as a day at the beach. Looking at a disturbing cancellation rate among patients facing an MRI, Grady, who's director of imaging services at Florida Hospital's Seaside Imaging Center here, resolved to address the problem by designing an exam space that would be so cheerful and welcoming that patients would decide to stick around. "We created an entire virtual beach environment in this area," she says. The unit's flooring is like a boardwalk; changing rooms look like cabanas; patients change not into backless nighties, but into surfer shorts and tops; barium is served, straight up, in a turquoise glass with an umbrella; the MRI unit is disguised as a sand castle; and a sound machine plays tapes of waves and birds. Several ScentAir machines diffuse the smell of the ocean in one room, and the scent of coconut oil in another. The fragrance of vanilla infuses the MRI room, since the scent reportedly helps people feel less claustrophobic.

"We know this isn't an amusement park. We're here for something serious," says Grady. "But you can almost see a patient start to relax when they start hearing the music and the waves and you hand them a pair of flip-flops. An amazing number say, 'This doesn't smell like a hospital.' " The results have been dramatic. In 2000, when the facility opened, 6% of patients needed sedation, upping the expense of the procedure. By last year, the sedation rate had dropped to 2%. What's more, the cancellation rate for the test dropped 50%. And the time spent coaxing people to submit to the exam has also fallen dramatically.

Seaside is now touting its beach-themed facility in its marketing materials and getting queries from other health-care outfits seeking to replicate its success. Grady has already rolled out a similar environment at Florida Hospital's Kissimmee facility.

For Grady, whose own teenage daughter needed MRI services last year, it's less about cost savings than about patient care. And if coconut oil and vanilla can help alleviate the stress of a frightening exam, then, she says, bring it on. "If you see how intimidating it is for kids to face this test, you know you've got to have this environment," she says. "Once I get them in the door, I've captured them."

Linda Tischler is a Fast Company senior writer.