The Impact of Ambient Scent on Evaluation, Attention, and Memory for Familiar and Unfamiliar Brands

Subjects were exposed to familiar and unfamiliar brand names in either consumer behavior, especially when compared with the amount of research devoted to other senses, such as vision and hearing a pleasantly scented or unscented environment. A computer recorded how much time they took to evaluate each brand. After a distracter task, their (Cohen and Chakravarti, 1990; Gilbert and Greenberg, 1992). The field of environmental psychology has examined humans’ memory for the brand names was tested with recall and recognition measures. The results indicate that the presence of a pleasant ambient physiological responses to other types of ambient stimuli, such as noise, light, temperature, and pollution (Bonnes and Secchiscent improved brand evaluations, especially for unfamiliar brands. Neither mood nor arousal appeared to mediate this process. The pleasant aroli, 1995), but comparatively little attention has been devoted to scent. Moreover, the bulk of work in this area has ambient scent also improved recall for unfamiliar, but not familiar, brand names. Analysis indicated that this process was mediated by attention, investigated the impact of environmental stimuli in contexts such as hospitals, housing projects, and various types of instithat is, the amount of time spent evaluating brand names. Recognition was not affected significantly by scent. Implications, limitations, and areas tutions, rather than in environments of primary interest to marketers, such as retail stores. for future research are discussed. J BUSN RES 2000. 49.157–165.  2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. In the field of marketing, environmental stimuli such as color (Crowley, 1993), clutter (Bitner, 1990), crowding (Eroglu and Machleit, 1990), and music (Yalch and Spangenberg, 1990) have been examined. As in psychology, relatively little The use of ambient scent, or atmospheric odor, as a attention has been devoted to the impact of ambient scent. Gulas and Bloch (1995) emphasized the need for researchers means to affect human behavior appears to be on the rise. Proctor and Gamble has tested point-of-purchase to investigate the impact of scent on consumer behavior and proposed a general framework for investigation (see also devices that emit product smells into store aisles (Freeman and Dagnoli, 1988). Hospitals have used ambient scents to Bitner, 1992). Only recently have researchers begun to systematically investigate the impact of ambient scent on consumer calm cancer patients during medical procedures (Owen, behavior (e.g., Bone and Jantranis, 1992; Knasko, 1995; 1994). Some overseas corporations report emitting scents Mitchell, Kahn, and Knasko, 1995; Spangenberg, Crowley, through air ducts to energize office workers (e.g., Baron and and Henderson, 1996). Prior research has focused largely on Thomley, 1994). One company has even devised a way to the impact of ambient scent on product evaluation. In the pump scents into the cabs of 18-wheelers to keep drowsy present study, the impact of a pleasant ambient scent is investitruck drivers from falling asleep at the wheel (Bounds, 1996). gated not only in terms of its effects on evaluations but also At present, annual sales in the environmental fragrancing inin terms of its effects on attention toward and memory for dustry total approximately $1 billion (Goldstein, 1996). brand names. Olfaction, or the sense of smell, however, remains a relatively underresearched topic in the fields of psychology and Conceptual Background Address correspondence to Maureen Morrin, Assistant Professor of MarketAlthough researchers have attempted to develop classification ing, University of Pittsburgh, Katz Graduate School of Business, 354 Mervis Hall, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. systems for odors (e.g., Henning’s prism, see Goldstein, 1996),