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

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Abstract

Subjects were exposed to familiar and unfamiliar brand names in either a pleasantly scented or unscented environment. A computer recorded how much time they took to evaluate each brand. After a distracter task, their memory for the brand names was tested with recall and recognition measures. The results indicate that the presence of a pleasant ambient scent improved brand evaluations, especially for unfamiliar brands. Neither mood nor arousal appeared to mediate this process. The pleasant ambient scent also improved recall for unfamiliar, but not familiar, brand names. Analysis indicated that this process was mediated by attention, that is, the amount of time spent evaluating brand names. Recognition was not affected significantly by scent. Implications, limitations, and areas for future research are discussed.

Section snippets

Conceptual Background

Although researchers have attempted to develop classification systems for odors (e.g., Henning's prism, see Goldstein, 1996), none have proved universally applicable. Some of the earliest research examined issues such as individuals' abilities to identify odors or to detect changes in their intensity (e.g., Cain, 1977). The sense of smell has been classified as one of the “chemical” senses, because it involves the response to gaseous molecules that, when perceived, are assimilated into the body

Hypotheses

The specific hypotheses to be tested are outlined below:

H1: Subjects in a pleasantly scented environment will rate brands (especially unfamiliar brands) more favorably than will subjects in an unscented environment.

H2: Subjects in a pleasantly scented environment will pay more attention to brands (especially unfamiliar brands) than will subjects in an unscented environment.

H3a: Subjects in a pleasantly scented environment will exhibit higher recall of brands (especially unfamiliar brands) than

Subjects and Design

Fifty undergraduate students of business at a large, private university participated in the experiment in exchange for extra course credit in an introductory marketing course. The study consisted of a 2 (ambient scent type: unscented, pleasant) × 2 (brand familiarity: familiar, unfamiliar) mixed model design. Scent type was a between-subjects factor, with subjects randomly assigned to either the unscented (n = 24) or pleasantly scented (n = 26) conditions for all phases of the experiment.1

Manipulation and Other Checks

Familiar brands were rated as significantly more familiar than the unfamiliar brands (MFamiliar = 6.47 vs. MUnfamiliar = 1.61, Paired t = 19.74, n = 50, p < 0.0001) (Table 1). Most (72%) of the subjects in the scented condition reported being unaware of “anything special” about the room's atmosphere when queried toward the end of the experiment (0% of subjects in the unscented condition reported awareness of anything special). It can be tentatively concluded from this result that the intensity

Discussion

The first conclusion emerging from the present research concerns the impact of ambient scent on consumer memory processes, an area that has received relatively little attention from researchers. It was discovered that the presence of a pleasant ambient odor caused subjects to expend additional processing efforts on unfamiliar brand stimuli. As a result, subjects in the pleasantly scented condition exhibited superior recall of the unfamiliar brands. The evidence from this study suggests that

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the help of Nada Nasr, a doctoral student at Boston University, in the data collection efforts. This project was funded, in part, by a research development grant from Boston University awarded to the first author while on the faculty at that institution.

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