But why is your sense of smell so powerful
We aren’t brain surgeons, but we did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, which smells awesome by the way, (thank you very much!) It’s simple biology.
4 of your 5 senses immediately go to the ‘1 + 1 = 2’ side of the brain for assembly and analysis. When your customers smell something, the information goes directly to the ‘I’m so glad I‘m here’ side, where emotions take place.
Suddenly the memory
revealed itself…
It’s not just emotion that makes scent powerful. It’s closely tied to your customers’ memories, as well. More than one hundred years ago, Marcel Proust wrote about this connection of scent to emotion and memory, hence the term Proustian moment.
Which scent transports you to a certain time and place? Is it the scent of fresh cut grass that takes you back to sitting on wet, dewey grass on an August morning in high school, stretching for practice. Perhaps, Hot Apple Pie reminds you of those few, but precious times when the whole family was together and everything was just right! Maybe, like us, the scent of Old Spice triggers thoughts of that first high school crush. Still can’t believe we fell for that yellow Trans Am…
“…If we get a whiff of a long-forgotten smell, we are suddenly intoxicated and similarly we think we no longer love the dead because we don’t remember them, but if by chance we come across an old glove we burst into tears.” Marcel Proust