When I first moved to Durham, one tobacco factory remained and the smell of curing tobacco reminded me of the smell of freshly mown hay on the Idaho cattle ranch where I was born.
Scents or smells are often central to the personality or brands of some communities. However, until now, smells such as decaying or burning fall leaves, fresh mountain air, frying bacon, pine trees, fresh linen, a cold winter night, roasted coffee, fishing streams, bourbon or wine barrels, ocean water, sagebrush, fresh mown hay, saddles, wildlife and others relied on word descriptions to trigger memories.
Now, ScentScape, an affordable, patented and trademarked digital scent delivery system is available from Scent Sciences as plug and play with compatible game consoles and PCs.
To me, the day is in sight when computers and smartphones will incorporate this type of scent delivery hardware as ubiquitously as they do cameras now.
Marketers may already be coding websites and apps to be able to deliver scents as they can deliver bird calls now. Community branding expert Bill Baker has been encouraging communities to identify unique scent attributes for most of a decade now.
No product brands will benefit more than the brands for communities and other places to visit. Like any other aspect of branding it will be open to abuse.
Many community marketers will hope no one discovers the true “smell” of their community, while others will try to mask smells or mimic other communities' smells and still others will join the united states of “generica.”
Genuine and authentic branding will carry the day, even when the marketing can include the actual attribute of scent.
And like any other element of branding, fraudulent use of smells will be easily revealed, and complains may be accompanied by much less attractive but equally familiar odors.
Like any other element of a community brand, if your community isn’t able to “deliver” on its scent or scents, your marketing will backfire. which has a scent all its own.
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