AsiaSpa Magazine Praises the Whiff Guys!

“I’ve just finished reading Whiff… And WOW! Totally fascinating! And definitely a must read for anyone wanting to learn more about the amazing olfactory sense.”
-Louise Renwick
AsiaSpa Magazine

Hear the Interview: The Advertising Guys Ask the Whiff Guys!

Be sure to check out the July 27th edition of The Advertising Show, where hosts Ray Schilens and Brad Forsythe discuss the hottest advertising issues, marketing trends, and strategies, for an in-depth interview with Whiff-Guy C. Russell Brumfield to learn about up-and-coming marketing tactics in scent communication and how to trigger a patterned, feel-good response in consumers everytime!

Scentsitivity and the Urban Coyote

Surprisingly enough, the greatest threat to a coyote’s well-being is not a misfired ACME anvil, but one of the coyote’s own cousins, the wolf. Wolves top the list of the very few natural predators faced by a coyote and, with a sense of smell at least 100 times superior to a human’s, coyotes avoid the urine scent markings of wolves like…well, misfired ACME anvils.

Thus sprang an age-old solution to an age-old problem in rural areas: If you want to prevent coyotes from menacing your chicken coops, spritz the area with wolf urine. People who live in rural areas and own chicken coops presumably have access to wolf urine. As the coyote overpopulation problem expands into cities and suburbs, however (there are an estimated 5000 coyotes roaming the streets of Los Angeles County alone), the solution is slow to follow. Where is a city slicker whose designer garbage cans are being plagued by foraging coyotes supposed to find a bottle of wolf urine?

Right here. PredatorPee™ 100% Wolf Urine, available in a 3-pack of 12 oz bottles for $73.99, is guaranteed to trick even the wiliest of coyote noses into mis-sensing the presence of a wolf and scurrying for a less worrisome refuse bin down the block.

The Sensory Superiority of a BirdBrain

Science has always considered that birds have a poor sense of smell. With their flashy colors and complex dances for mating, their musical talents for communicating, and their ultra-sharp eyesight for foraging, after all, why should Mother Nature have granted them keen noses to boot?

Cawthron Institute molecular biologist Andrew Fidler has shot down conventional wisdom, producing genetic evidence that the sense of smell is much more important in birds than has previously been thought. Working with former colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Bavaria, Dr. Fidler has uncovered proof that some species use scent to navigate, forage, and even to distinguish individuals.

The team searched for smell-related genes in nine species, and were surprised to discover that some bird species rival mammals in their number of olfactory receptors. Mice have roughly 1000 working olfactory receptor genes, and humans have about 400 (although we use only about 40% of them). The researchers found that the Kiwi–which has nostrils at the tip of its bill and probes the forest floor at night for food–has about 600. The Kakapo, a nocturnal parrot, has 667. “The sense of smell in birds may be as good as that of humans, and in some cases, even better,” says graduate student Silke Steiger.

So, let’s tally it all up: They fly for free, they sing better than humans, they dance better than humans, they dress better than humans, they see better than humans, and now, they smell better than humans? I’d be feeling a little short-changed if they could, say, speak…

Oh, shut up, Polly. Now you’re just gloating.

How Well Do You Smell?

Knowing whether or not you smell good isn’t so tricky. As a rule of thumb, if humans display an obvious aversion to your armpits and dogs display an obvious interest in them, it may be time to break out the Mister Bubble. But knowing whether or not you smell well is another matter. As with vision and hearing, the sense of smell is subjective. With no point of reference, an individual is unable to perceive a decline in these senses.

Dr. Allen Seiden is part of a team currently testing the Olfactory Function Assessment with Computerized Testing machine (OLFACT), which objectively measures an individual’s ability to smell. The machine emits a scent through a tube beneath the patient’s nose then prompts him to identify the scent on a computer screen. “It’s basically plumbing, just blowing into the air are odorized vials that contain the odorant, and that contains all the different smells the patients have to smell,” says design specialist and OLFACT creator Lloyd Hastings.

The new machine, expected to be marketed soon for nationwide use, may prove every bit as valuable as those already in mainstream use for testing vision and hearing. Not only do we rely on our noses to enhance our sense of taste, to alert us to danger, and Read more

This Train Station Smells…Yummy!

A new advertising display being tested in Tokyo may have commuters hitting the subway for a breath of fresh air.

The “Scent-emitting LCD Display System,” developed by NTT Communications Corp, is a 42-inch LCD display equipped with a scent-sprayer that emits tempting aromas which correspond with the on-screen imagery geared to lure hungry passers-by into grabbing one a coupon book advertising local restaurants. Testing on the effectiveness of the digital signage began on July 18 in the Tokyo station and will continue through August 1.

Virtual Olfactory

There’s a lot of chatter these days about the inevitable addition of scent to enhance the video gaming experience, but how about a video game in which the sense of smell plays such an integral role that it can’t accurately be called a “video” game at all?

Does It Make Sense To Have Fun?, one of sixteen juried selections on exhibit at this week’s International Symposium on Electronic Art in Singapore (ISEA 2008), features a video game called Smell Me, in which players have to navigate their way around a virtual environment relying solely on their sense of smell. Sniffing becomes an essential element rather than merely a novel addition, as players are obliged to remember certain scents in order to accomplish certain tasks and to interact with the game and with each other.

“Smell is the interface. You will see I use smell as a core feature,” says Macau-based designer Mei Kei Lai. “In the past, I have found a lot of models that just use smell as a reward, for instance, if you see a picture of an apple, you can smell the apple.” This idea lacked dimension for the imaginative artist, who first became intrigued with the incorporation of scent into interactive design during her post graduate studies in London. “I try to use smell as part of the core features, that the game cannot play if there is no smell.”

Holiday Inn Freshens Up Its Image

“This is not your father’s Holiday Inn,” says Dan O’Connell, president and chief executive of the Fort Wayne-Allen County Convention and Visitors Bureau, speaking of the new hotel scheduled to open next month. And he’s right, it’s not just any hotel. The 151-room facility will be among the first of some 3,200 “Fresh New” Holiday Inns opening worldwide by the end of 2010 which will feature spiffy new logo, higher-end room amenities, and the hotel’s very own White Tea and Citrus Signature Fragrance.

Holiday Inn and Travelodge (which just began implementation of its new AroomaTherapy) are among the latest to embrace the Signature Scent trend which is promising to become an industry staple. Westin Hotels & Resorts, Marriott International, and Park Hyatt are just a few of the heavy hitters which have recently joined the Scent Revolution. Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts’ Essence of Shangri-La is dispersed by an atomization system which features anti-bacterial and anti-smoke benefits as well.

Holiday Inn executives expects the Fresh program to generate an enhanced return on investment for their owners and franchisees, who will invest up to $1 billion over a three year period. “As always, we have worked in close collaboration with our owners around the world on these efforts to ensure we have their buy-in every step of the way,” said Mark Snyder, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Brand Management for Holiday Inn. “They agree this is the right thing to do to make this great brand fit for future generations.”

Aromatherapy for the Follically Impaired

Melanie Vonzabuesnig, author of Hair Loss in Women… Getting to the Root of the Problem, first began losing her hair at an age not customarily associated with baldness–seven. She wasn’t happy about it, but after scores of doctors assured her parents that her condition (a hair follicle disorder called alopecia areata) was incurable, she learned to live with it. At age 32, however, when her hair began falling out by the handful and, worse, not growing back, she knew the time had come for action. Not a wig. Not a weave. Not a hair transplant. Vonzabuesnig says that she overcame her problem entirely through the use of aromatherapy.
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The Dramatic Success of Theatrical Scent Branding

German filmgoers were in the dark as to the purpose of the minute-long spot that preceded the feature–showing a sunny beach and lounging sunbathers and breaking waves–right up until the final seconds, when the scent of Nivea sun cream filled the theater, accompanied by the onscreen legend, “Nivea. The Scent of Summer.” Then, the purpose came to them. More importantly, it stayed with them. Cinema exit polls showed that the theater patrons exposed to this ad had an astounding 515% higher recall of the Nivea ad than those who saw the same spot without the scent!

Cinescent works by pumping smells through the theater’s air-conditioning system to distribute a scent that evenly covers other odors without being overpowering. The process allows much finer fragrance molecules to reach the audience, minimizing the allergy and irritation problems encountered by previous attempts, when smells were dispensed via boxes located among the audience.

“We are talking to a handful of clients, including sun cream, bread, coffee, perfume, air fresheners and chocolate manufacturers,” says Mike Hope-Milne of the cinema advertising company Pearl & Dean, who was so impressed by the German test that he is bringing the technology to the U.K. “We are entering into a tough ad market so we do need to try new things and find new ways to appeal to advertisers.” This type of Endorphin Branding™ may be just the ticket. “It’s encouraging people to reappraise the medium,” says Hope-Milne, noting that three of the companies now showing interest in Cinescent have never previously advertised in movie theaters at all.

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