Does It Make Sense to Use Scents to Enhance Brand Memory?

Can pleasant ambient scents enhance consumer memory for branded products? If so, why? The authors examine the effects of ambient scent on recall and recognition of brands in two studies. In the first (i.e., encoding) phase of each study, subjects are asked to evaluate familiar and unfamiliar brands...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of marketing research Vol. 40; no. 1; pp. 10 - 25
Main Authors Morrin, Maureen, Ratneshwar, S.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Chicago American Marketing Association 01.02.2003
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Behavior
Brand identification
Brand names
Brands
Consumer behavior
Consumer research
Consumers
Emotions
Information retrieval
Marketing
Memory
Memory encoding
Memory recall
Mental stimulation
Odors
Packaged goods
Personal computers
Soaps
Statistical significance
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Summary:Can pleasant ambient scents enhance consumer memory for branded products? If so, why? The authors examine the effects of ambient scent on recall and recognition of brands in two studies. In the first (i.e., encoding) phase of each study, subjects are asked to evaluate familiar and unfamiliar brands while viewing digital photographs of products on a computer screen; stimulus viewing times are measured covertly on the computer. Ambient scent is manipulated in the experiment room through a diffuser. In the second (i.e., retrieval) phase, conducted 24-hours later, brand recall and recognition accuracy are assessed. In both studies, ambient scent improves both recall and recognition of familiar and unfamiliar brands. This pattern emerges whether or not the scent is congruent with the product category (Study 1), and the enhancement in brand memory is due to the presence of ambient scent during encoding rather than retrieval (Study 2). Although ambient scent apparently did not alter subjects' self-assessed mood or arousal levels, it increased their attention in terms of longer stimulus viewing times. Mediation analyses suggest that the attention mechanism most likely explains why ambient scent improves brand memory.
ISSN:0022-2437
1547-7193
DOI:10.1509/jmkr.40.1.10.19128