I suppose we should not be surprised but there is a company that is in the business of developing scents that they then infuse into the air of stores and shopping places.
The scents they create are designed to impel you to do things like buy more products and heighten your attention to items for sale.
One company is called SmartFrangrances and it is based in Ramsey, New Jersey.
Aromatherapy, when used for non-mercenary purposes has great personal benficial impact. By the use of carefully crafted oil essences, one can reduce their stress, or feel uplifted or relax or maybe even recuperate from ailments. Aromatherapy when used for mercenary purposes uses the tenets of aroma characteristics to encourage you to spend money on things that you may not really need or want. It is a perversion of the craft ... and it happens every day!
How often do you wander by a bakery and catch a whiff of delicious baked goods that draw you into the store? Or the lovely scent of brewing coffee that compells you to have a cup? That is a type of aromatherapy at work.
But SmartFragrances does it one step "better".Dan Offerman of SmartFragrances was interviewed by BusinessWeek and was asked questions like:
Can scent control behavior?
Offerman answer: In general, you want to
improve the customer experience: Either to get them to stay longer or to
buy more. And now it’s another way of branding, tapping an additional
sense to help you promote the company or a product.
And it seems impossible for a shopper to avoid these created scents....
So once you figure out the scent, how do you get it into the environment?
Offerman answer: Nanodiffusion.
A machine is tapped into the HVAC system of a building, which sends
fragrance oil floating in the air, and takes a dozen minutes before it
dissipates. A typical machine goes through about a kilo of oil a month.
If you want to learn more about aromatherapy and do it yourself, try this Aromatherapy starter set
