There is a term called activation. A company may have a very good distribution network, a decent product, making the final product rightly available at the retail counter and promising a value to the user but it all reduces to ashes if the product doesn’t register in the mind of consumer and he just passes away. Its not that the product is bad, its just that the mind of consumer is not receptive to that category of product because of some reason. This will happen if either the product is a low involvement one or if it has become one, which may further happen due to many reasons, loyalty being one.
Some companies focus on packaging to make the registration; others try shouting, and many these days go for guerilla. Idea is to INDULGE the consumer, and this essentially has to be by involving or rather pushing to involve his senses. Attractive packaging catering to sight, asking people to touch and feel the product related to skin and so on. The consumers have been getting used to innovations and marketers to innovating. Add those two together and you get some really creative marketing campaigns. Say, lately the trend of
Scent Marketing has picked up. Being true to its name, it’s blowing nice aromas at you to get you to spend more and keep coming back.
ScentAir, a firm from
North Carolina has indulged itself in this marketing. It makes specialized smells for the companies. These are then used in retail outlets, in hotels, in magazines and lot more open avenues left to be innovated. Sometimes smells of actual products are pumped into the room. In one case, says Van Epps, CEO, ScentAir, that it actually lured more people, step by step, to a basement ice cream shop by wafting the essence of sugar cookie and waffle cone down the stairs. He claimed that the shop found a tremendous lift in their sales as a result of using that like a sign. “It's why we call it an aroma billboard.” he points.
Aroma based signatures is the other popular trend. Many companies are going for a signature aroma and associate it with their deliverables. Idea is that scents are much more associated with our memories than our sight, so help in making an emotional bond. This very thing inculcates the high involvement of product. So next time one smells the same scent, the brand is recognized. ScentAir is already selling the devices for this kind. A typical machine lasts for 300 hrs, can detect motion and is a small enough one to miss out on the general attention. With 1000 smells to choose from, one can customize it fully.
And companies are embracing it with a big smile. Mars, PepsiCo, Kraft and Procter & Gamble, hope scents will help them get attention among fragmented audiences.
Labels: New Trends
posted by Jas @ 2:38 AM,
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ScentAir, a firm from 
