What’s the fastest route to the brain?
Sight? No.
Hearing? No.
Smell? Yes.
So what if your alarm clock woke you not with blaring sounds or bright lights, but with the scent of breakfast?
That’s exactly what Holiday Inn has been trialling – a Breakfast Alarm Clock. Guests choose to wake up to the smell of coffee, bacon, or blueberry muffin.
Aside from generating great PR, this is a sweet reminder that senses shape behaviour far more than we realise.
Smell, in particular, travels directly to the limbic system, which is responsible for emotion and memory. It can change how we feel and act before we’ve become consciously aware of why.
- Nike, for example, found that adding a subtle scent to stores increased customers’ likelihood to buy by 84% compared with unscented spaces.
- Disney theme parks pump aromas of popcorn and baked goods into the main thoroughfares to incite nostalgia and hunger.
- And in Japan, diffusing lemon scent in offices led to 54% fewer typing errors because workers became more alert and focused.
When we talk about influencing behaviour, we often limit our focus to what people see and hear.
Imagine the possibilities if we started engaging every sense, not just the obvious ones.
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