Augmenting the interplay between scent and human emotion.
Within an hour of waking, many Americans interact at least five times with company brands. Coffee, tea, shampoo, soap, toothpaste, skin cream, hair gel…sunblock… More often than not, they have chosen the brand based partly on the product’s scent. Significant studies have been done on sensory stimulation and consumer behavior. It has been positively shown that behavior is influenced by not only sight, but sound, touch, taste and smell. The more senses that are incorporated into an environment, the more influential it is.
When we think of scents we love, many are tied to an emotion. As marketers run out of ways to target perspective clients, scent technology leads the way. The psychological and physiological effect of using scents is the new frontier in branding business. The power of scent makes content extremely immersive and compelling. It creates mood, such as foreshadowing or ambiance; intensifies emotions, such as love and establishes place and season. What scent identifies and blends with your business model? An increasing number of companies today aim to attach aroma to their brand identity. Thinking of it as an aromatic logo.
Interplay with Technology-enhancing the mobile interface.
With so much of life based on electronic representations of reality, digital media not only represents our physical reality but has changed the way we perceive and interact with the world. In more than one way, technology has simplified human experience but sometimes it seems to miss out on triggering the emotional and human quality.
The recent interest and innovation in scent technology intends to change the interactive entertainment experience. Understanding that smell reaches out into a new, visceral dimension, transporting viewers, gamers, music fans and consumers into the realm of the senses. Atmosphere, mood, emotion, and products can all be enhanced with scent.
What if communication could open now on the sense of the smell? Odor in fact is so closely linked with memory that people would communicate more effectively with each other if using it.
Smell as the new layer of communication could become a new revolution of a kind.
Mobile communication has so far succeeded in transmitting audio and video, stimulating two of our five senses. One possible evolution of telecommunication could be to enhance the multi-sensorial experience of the user.
Digital Scent Technology aims to scent-enable movies, games, music, animation, or any digital media to create a more immersive and captivating environment for the audience.
Scentography promises a vast extension of sensory space, with profound implications.
New devices such as artificial noses which can capture and playback the smells in digitized format are on the verge of becoming a commercial reality-moving into food, beverage, medical, and environmental applications.
Some more examples:
Jenny Tillotson, a researcher at the University of the Arts in London, has produced the world's first interactive scent outfit. She called her prototype dress 'Smart Second Skin'. Just like the scent of the skin changes with emotion, the Smart Second Skin fabric interacts with human emotions whereby the aroma dimension is an integral part of the wearers wellness sensory experience. "Just as people store different genres of music on their iPods, this method offers a new sensory system to collect and store a selection of fragrances close to the body: a modern iPod of the fragrance industry embedded in fashion".
In the near future, beside text, audio and video, communication will integrate an additional layer focusing on the sense of smell, which will help trigger memories and emotions. You may be able to capture a fragrance snapshot of your environment and send it attached to a text message or email.
On the horizon:
-Engineers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology have developed an odor recorder that can analyze scents and reproduce them by combining the 96 chemicals packed inside the device.
-Redefining the home theater experience with the sense of smell is what the SMELLIT concept is all about. So, next time a chef’s cooking a meal on TV, you know how it smells if not how it tastes.
-The latest trend in food packaging: Jars and boxes lined with "smell technology" emit molecules that push against their contents, infusing the items with different flavors.
-Researchers at the University of Southern California in LA has patented a project that would allow US Army officers to use coded smells to give orders. These can be delivered silently, in the dark and when loud noise is drowning out speech.
-An upstart called ScentSational Technologies, founded in 1997 in Jenkintown, Pa., is working with a number of food companies to harness the science of smell. The aim: to produce tasty products without sugary additives like corn syrup or expensive ingredients such as heavy cream.
-A group of Savannahians have teamed up to produce the world’s first scent-enabled music album. The first CD equipped with scent-technology is UNLEASHED by ZAN, who lives and records in Savannah. As the computer plays songs, the teapot-sized Scent Dome releases different fragrances triggered by code embedded in the CD.
