On the way to smell-enhanced films and software, MindHacks points to olfactory manipulation in the retail store.
“Men don’t like to stick around when it smells feminine, and women don’t linger in a store if it smells masculine,” says Spangenberg, who led the research and has been studying the impact of ambient scents on consumers for more than a decade. Spangenberg says this most recent study underscores the importance of matching gender-preferred scents to the product.
“Both men and women browsed for longer and spent more money when a fragrance specific to their gender was used to scent the store atmosphere.
“Scent marketing is a viable strategy that retailers should consider,” says Spangenberg. “But they really need to tailor the scent to the consumer.”