Sealed With a Sniff
June 18, 2008
It’s been 35 years since scent marketing first went postal, when the tiny nation of Bhutan released its stunning rose-scented series. Ensuing years saw some delightful additions, including the coffee stamp of Brazil and the chocolate stamp of Switzerland. Others were downright bizarre, such as the sweet and sour pork stamp issued by China in 2007 (to commemorate The Year of the Pig). While Tony Servies admits that he cannot substantiate rumors that the stamps are more delicious to lick, his Stamps of Distinction blog has released a list of the most notoriously stinky stamps ever to tickle the snout of a philatelist or draw dogs to a mailman.
Stench Soup and Other Winning Recipes
June 18, 2008
Betty Crocker, she’s not. And when the US Department of Defense approached Pamela Dalton of the Monell Chemical Senses Center to create a recipe for the Foulest Malodor on Earth, she took to the task with a devilish passion.
Her “Burnt Hair” formula smelled pretty bad. “Who Me?”–which combined natural gas odorant with a sort of spoiled mushroom aroma–was downright nasty. “Bathroom Malodor”–a fecal odor spiced with rotten eggs and decaying rodent–was disgusting enough to get Dalton cursed in several languages by her multi-ethnic test group. But it was a worst-of-the-worst proprietary blend that took the prize: “Stench Soup” smells so perfectly horrible that it sends the stomach lurching, the eyes tearing, and blows every other thought right out of the mind.
“That one takes over every aspect of your consciousness,” Dalton says proudly, adding that she can think of several uses for her stinky concoction besides non-lethal warfare. “Odors are one of the quickest ways to get people to move away from something. I’ve evacuated our building on several occasions because we’ve had an odor escape.”
June 17th Teleconference Audio - Available
June 17, 2008
Listen to What You Missed! Here’s the recording of the fifth Teleconference from Tuesday, June 17th: “The Fragrance Media™ - A look at scent marketing through print, packaging, fabrics, microencapsulation, and micro & macro delivery systems.”
The Natural Art of Scent Marketing
June 17, 2008
It’s all about demographics, in the world of scent marketing, and the “Stinking Corpse Lily” (rafflesia arnoldii) of Southeast Asia effectively targets pollinating flies by smelling…well…like a Stinking Corpse!
The reddish-brown flower, which can reach a diameter of 3 feet and a weight of 24 pounds, is pretty much the whole ball game with this peculiar plant. Rafflesia arnoldii has no observable leaves, stems or even roots. Though still technically considered a vascular plant, it behaves more like fungi, living as a parasite on the Tetrastigma vine and obtaining water and nutrients through thread-like strands of tissue which contact surrounding host cells.
The patent is neither pending nor necessary for the aroma of decaying flesh, but there’s a lesson here: What does your target market smell like and like to smell? What scent will draw them (like flies) to your product?
Olfactory Fact #123: An Elephant Nose Good Guys From Bad Guys
June 16, 2008
African elephants can classify members of a single species into subgroups by scent alone: The big guys were indifferent to the odor of garments previously worn by the Kamba tribe (humans who do not hunt elephants), but garments of the Maasi (humans who DO hunt elephants) triggered a stampede.
Free Teleconference - June 24th, 7:30 pm EST
June 16, 2008
You are invited to join us for the sixth and final installment of the Insider’s Tele-Conference Series:
Tuesday June 24, 2008, at 7:30 p.m EST
Designing Scented-Spaces - Innovative scent-strategies for Interior and Architectural design in branding the “Guest Experience.”
Just Dial: 1-605-475-6000
Access Code: 770359
Lines will fill up fast, so dial in early!
Olfactory Fact #141: Smokers May Stink But They Don’t Smell
June 14, 2008
74% of participating University of Indiana students were able to correctly sniff out their own shirts from a pile of stinky laundry, but this percentage dropped to 50% for students who smoked more than ten cigarettes per day.
No Coffee For Me, I’ll Just Sniff Yours
June 14, 2008
It may not be the caffeine that makes sleepy people crave a cup of Java. According to a team of scientists led by Yoshinori Masuo at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tsukuba, Japan, just the smell of coffee may be enough to reverse the effects of sleep deprivation on the brain.
An examination of the brains of sleep-deprived mice revealed reduced levels of mRNA (messenger molecules that indicate when a gene is being expressed) for eleven genes important to brain function. When the mice were exposed to the aroma of coffee, the mRNA for nine of the genes was restored to near-normal levels–and pushed to above normal levels for two!
If the same genes are suppressed in sleep-deprived humans, says Masuo, it may explain why people feel bad when they haven’t had enough sleep. Further, that gene reactivation could explain why people love the smell of coffee. His team is currently working to identify the specific molecules in coffee aroma that affect gene expression, in hopes of pumping them into factories to help revive tired workers, thus eliminating the need for “coffee breaks.” Is nothing sacred?
Olfactory Fact #49: Your Taste in Music Really MIGHT Stink…
June 12, 2008
…and your sport jacket really MIGHT be too loud. Sufferers of synesthesia, a psychological phenomenon in which in the real information of one sense is accompanied by perception in another, may see a sound, smell a color, or hear an odor.
NoseTalgic Engineering
June 11, 2008
“Give us your children and they will be ours for life.”
It’s an established tenet of the Church and an unspoken motto of Big Tobacco with an undeniably sinister ring. Yet, from an olfactory standpoint, it might be said of virtually every product/substance each of us encountered during the entirety of our “formative years.” Our initial exposure to any given scent will indelibly imprint a connection to the circumstances of that exposure, with a surety that our other four senses can only envy.
In my own case, and just off the top of my head, I’d cite: Read more
