Imagining Smell Increases Desire for Product

Though most advertising revolves around image, a recent study shows how imagining smell-or what researchers refer to as -smellizing-can help increase the consumers desire for a certain product.

Using cookies and cakes to get the senses going, researchers came to the conclusion that based on four different studies, the smell of products enticed the consumer even more than a picture or graphic alone.

"Before we started this project, we looked for print ads that asked consumers to imagine the smell of the product, and we found none," said profess of Marketing Maureen Morrin of Temple University's Fox School of Business, via a press release. "We think its because advertisers don't think it'll actually do anything."

For the study, researchers measured consumers' responses to advertised food products by measuring the effects of desire, smell on salivation and actual food consumption. They discovered that imagining the taste of food increases various types. However, this only happens when image is associated with smell-via photographic advertisement.

Those that viewed the advertisement were also prompted with various questions, including the following, courtesy of the release: Fancy a freshly baked cookie?'; Feel like a chocolate cake?; and Feel like a freshly baked cookie? Look for these in a store near you.

The study authors discovered that the type of headlines also played a role for desire to consume various food products if they were also accompanied by a call to imagine the smell of the food, with desire strongest when both smell and image were available.

"It has been shown, for example, that although individuals can discriminate among thousands of different odors and are reasonably good at detecting odors they have smelled before, they are quite poor at identifying the odors they smell," the study said, via the release. "That is, individuals often have difficulty stating just what it is they happen to be smelling at any particular moment, unless they can see the odor referent."

Thus, researchers stress the importance of image to activate the senses of smell.

For instance, when participants were asked to imagine a scent with a visual, their salivatory responses increased by .36 to .39 grams, according to two different studies. Another study also showed that when asked to imagine a scent that included a visual properly, the participants consumed 5.3 more grams of advertised cookies.

What do you think?

More information regarding the study can be found via the Journal of Consumer Research.