The following is taken straight from DMX’s information page.
In a world where the average person sees 3,000 advertisements a day, the only way to stand out is by delivering a multi-sensory experience customers won’t forget. An international leader in creating engaging experiences, DMX uses music, video and digital signage, messaging, scent, and audio/visual systems to personify and enhance brands to create lasting connections that encourage customer loyalty.
For those who don’t know, DMX is essentially a branding firm based in the United States. Their clients include big retail chains as well as food chains. A few examples include Levi’s, Burberry, McDonald’s, Olive Garden, etc. You get the point – these are big clients! DMX incorporates music, video, and scents into their branding scheme for these corporations. I always knew about the music and video part. Almost every store in the mall has some kind of music playing in the background. It helps set the mood of the store, and gives us something to focus on when we’re shopping around. Yes, it’s true that we’re not always 100% focused on what we’re spending our money on. Music is there to distract us to a certain degree. Some stores also incorporate video to show off new products. To be honest, I never realized the smell of a store is a manufactured phenomenon. Walk into Abercrombie and Fitch, and what do you smell? I smell the the latest cologne that’s being promoted to all the guys walking into the store. Walk into Bath & Body Works, and what do you smell? Probably a mixture of a bunch of different hand soaps, lotion, and candles. It smells wonderful and it’s relaxing. In other words, it puts you in the mood to spend money. More on that later.
In music industry class a few days ago, we watched an interview with a DMX employee. I was half paying attention until she came to the topic of scents. It was one of those “wait a second…is this for real…” moments. Music and video in advertisement and branding is obvious. Scents aren’t always as obvious. This is because music and video is always a manufactured component in advertisement. Even though we all associate certain songs with certain brands, the music has to be created by someone. Therefore, when we hear music in the background, we subconsciously realize the music is manufactured and it’s because a human being put it there. Scents are different. Bake a loaf of bread, take it out of the oven, and smell it. It smells like bread. You can’t make it smell like something else unless you do some complex chemical stuff to it, right? Bread smells like bread because it is bread. We don’t assume a human has planted the smell in the bread. It smells the way it is because that’s actually what it smells like! Take this concept into the store, and you’ll realize why the usage of scents in branding blew my mind. I always assumed flower shops smelled like flowers because there are flowers everywhere. I always assumed Abercrombie and Fitch smells like a cologne overdose because employees are constantly spraying the stuff all over the place. I always assumed certain fast food chains smelled like actual fast food. (Continue Reading…)
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