Edition: U.S. / Global

The Smell Of Money

Published: October 25, 1992
















The first was the sneaker study. About two years ago, Dr. Hirsch asked 31 shoppers to inspect Nike sneakers in two identical-looking rooms (he could have chosen a Hula-Hoop, but picked Nike sneakers). One room was filled with purified air, the other with a mixed floral scent. Afterward, Dr. Hirsch said, 84 percent of the subjects said they were more inclined to buy the sneakers in the scented room.

Dr. Hirsch said throngs of retailers got in touch with him, and several retail stores and athletic shops bought the scent's formula for about $3,000. Nike did not. "The big thing we try to do is get athletic shoes not to smell," said Liz Dolan, Nike's director of communications. "We never think about adding a smell."

Dr. Hirsch's second venture came a year ago, when he went to Las Vegas, Nev., to scent a casino. He is no gambler himself (on his last visit, he risked all of 35 cents, losing it). Yet, he went to the Las Vegas Hilton and picked out three slot-machine zones to study for a weekend. One zone was left unscented, while each of the other two was misted with a different agreeable odor. Dr. Hirsch is vague about describing the odors. Using numbers furnished by the Hilton, he compared the play at the slots with the previous and subsequent weekends. He found little change in the neutral zone or in one scented zone, he said, but in the other scented area the amount of money gambled soared by 45 percent. And the more intense the smell, the more people bet.

Dr. Hirsch announced these results last month and has heard from 20 casinos around the world that feel their dreams have come true. The Las Vegas Hilton, among others, has asked him for a proposal and cost estimate. He has also been approached by 150 other businesses -- clothes stores, shopping malls, health clubs, restaurants -- praying that the smell may induce their clientele to spend more, too. Dr. Hirsch said he would probably start selling the Las Vegas Odor by January, though he has no idea why it worked. "Actually," he said, "I thought the other odor was going to work, too."

Some researchers have greeted the Las Vegas study with considerable skepticism. They point out that Dr. Hirsch, who is 36 years old, has published few papers in scientific journals (he counted 11), and they are unaware of his studies being replicated by other scientists. No one else can copy the Las Vegas inquiry, since Dr. Hirsch won't divulge the scent.

Dr. Schiffman, the Duke researcher, said she found the 45 percent surge in gambling suspicious, since other efforts to stimulate spending -- like spreading the smell of popcorn through a movie theater's ventilation system -- had not lifted popcorn sales more than 5 to 15 percent.

"We can't evaluate any of this," said Dr. Charles Wysocki, a smell researcher at Monell. "We don't even know what the scent was."

Dr. Hirsch charges up to $50,000 to produce a smell. Chicago Transparent Products bought a "fresh linen" scent for its new Brawny plastic trash bags that supposedly makes consumers feel healthy and clean. A women's clothing maker, which Dr. Hirsch would not identify, hired him to come up with a smell that can be blended into garments and will supposedly make young women more inclined to buy them.

"There's Muzak, there's neon lighting, there are all sorts of bells and jingles being used," Dr. Hirsch said. "Why not smells?"

Consumer groups, however, are scathing. They say that nothing has changed about the products that are enveloped in smells and thus marketers are engaging in smell-washing.

"This sounds like Vance Packard needs to write a sequel called, 'The Olfactory Persuaders,' " said Mark Silbergeld, the director of the Consumers Union office in Washington, the product-research organization. (Mr. Packard wrote "The Hidden Persuaders," about advertising, in 1957.) "We have taken the position that shoppers should make their purchases based on rational decisions. We advise shoppers, for instance, that they should not shop for food when they're hungry. This sort of technique would not be conducive to rational decisions. It's pretty sleazy."

He and others say that companies could face liability lawsuits from people allergic to scents pumped into products or stores. "I never heard of anyone allergic to Muzak," Mr. Silbergeld said. "But a lot of people are allergic to certain smells."

Smells are also chancy because people often perceive them in idiosyncratic ways. Dr. Wysocki said experience and genetics play a role in responses to a smell. "Say someone first smelled roses on a walk through a garden in the springtime with his mother," he explained. "Then as an adult the smell of roses will invoke pleasant memories. Another person first smelled roses at the funeral of his mother. So as an adult, he has a negative reaction to the smell."

As for genetic makeup, Dr. Wysocki said what is luscious to one person may be odious to another. "I'm a walking example of genetics," he said. "I love the smell of skunks."

At Seafirst Bank, which has 285 branches in the state of Washington, the money that spews from its teller machines buys as much as the money from any other bank. But Seafirst believes it can make customers think its money is better than the competition's by teasing the nose.

Starting in the next few months, it plans to test fragrances at several dozen of its A.T.M.'s. One idea is to apply a mint smell to the money itself, so it will seem newer and fresher, though Jack David, Seafirst's marketing director, confessed that that "might be stupid."

The Seafirst A.T.M.'s discharge coupons along with money, and an idea that Mr. David finds more promising is to coat coupons promoting auto loans with the smell of the new leather of a car.

The lodging industry is also experimenting with smells. The Miami Dadeland Marriott Hotel installed a $12,000 fragrance system in its lobby that dispenses a floral-citrus smell that it felt would please guests, perhaps leading to longer stays.

The Marriott system was created by Aromasys Inc., a Minnesota company that began marketing fragrance-dispensing machines about six months ago. Mark Peltier, the company's founder, said he had heard from a number of hotels and retail stores, as well as from corporations that want to use smells to raise productivity among workers, another area of growing research. An Aroma sys machine for a small store runs about $5,000, he said, while a hotel lobby system could cost $15,000.

Mr. Peltier originally intended to sell his machines to schools because he felt odors could make students more attentive. But he found that schools didn't have much interest.

Shimizu, a Tokyo construction corporation, is marketing a computerized scent-delivery system in this country through its S. Technology subsidiary. Researchers in Japan have experimented with smells in offices, hotels and other public spaces since the 1970's.

Mr. Peltier said he thought systems like his would be commonplace, though he foresaw some turbid times. "Greed drives this planet," he added. "I think this will go through a period of abuse. People will make false claims and put cheap scents in the air. There will be companies that will not market smells with integrity."

Not every odor experiment has worked free of angst. Knot Shop, a Chicago-based chain of tie stores, pumped the smell of leather, oak and pipe tobacco into five stores for about a year. "The idea is that most women buy neckwear," said Ms. Owens, who served as a consultant to the chain. "And so we wanted the stores to smell like the ideal man."

But Gene Silverberg, the president of Bigsby & Kruthers, the parent company, terminated the smell about four months ago. "Frankly, I didn't find it made enough difference," he said. "The upkeep was a lot of trouble, making sure it was not too strong or too weak. Without the smell, I haven't seen any drop in sales."

A new national network of 24 stores called It's Really One Dollar has had early difficulties. If you sell everything for $1, you might think you don't have to use marketing gimmicks. Nevertheless, Steven Schultz, the chain's chairman, is a firm believer in smell, and so he had a fragrance-dispenser installed in the store in Louisville, Ky. The machine emitted a peach fragrance that consultants found inviting to the young women that the store targets.

Unfortunately, some of the store's departments, like health and beauty aids, already discharged a smell of their own. So much peach had to be released into the air to overcome those odors that the place smelled like a peach warehouse. After three months, the machine was shut off. But Mr. Schultz has not given up. By early next year he hopes to solve the problem and then to put peach odor into all of his stores.

In some cases, the point is to repulse customers. Which brings up the case of the Powerful Underarm Odor.

Dr. Wysocki said that several companies in England and Australia are instilling something akin to the smell of fear into the bills they mail.

They are using androstenone, a volatile steroid found in underarm sweat and urine in humans. It is also present in pigs; males emit it to prompt mating behavior in females. About half the human population can't smell it at all; 30 to 35 percent find it an alluring, musky smell, and the rest liken it to stale urine or outrageously powerful underarm sweat.

"For people who get a bill in the mail and it stinks like human urine, I can see why they would want to get it the hell out of the house," Dr. Wysocki said. "That's a nasty odor."