I knew these retail demons had more up their sleeves than meets the eye.
And they have more than meets the nose too. And ears. And math-brain-center. I’ve written about money trickery before, but I didn’t realize the hacking of our pocketbooks also hacks our olfactory bulbs. Indeed their light-bulb ideas span to sense hijacking beyond the predictable product placement and fake sales. Wait, did somebody say “bake sale”?
No, but indeed baked goods – or the perception that they’re around, at least – is one of the ways they wisely matrix your mind. ‘cept, you won’t be bending spoons. You’ll be snatching them up along with little knickknack jars and wine racks and salt and pepper shakers. Why? Because research has shown that when the smell of cookies or pie is in the atmosphere, it makes bishes wanna get to kitchen-nesting before cooking up a giant food baby for funsies. So they’ll hypnotize your nose holes with homey aromas to encourage homegood buying.
And although I immediately regret that homey aroma homonym I just used (as it might confuse you into imagining the fragrance of sweaty cholos in wifebeaters), the thought was there and – in commercial practice – this tactic’s brilliant.
Because I fall for it every time.
Then again, I’m the type who will put on my Sunday best and plan a trip to Yankee Candle Company, so it’s no surprise I get double scent-ceptioned when I hit Pier-1, apparently. Because some furniture stores will yes-and the preexisting smell of a study room by imbuing their space with a bit o’ extra “leather and wood”. Why? It makes people more willing to splurge on luxurious furniture that matches it.
Fragrant notes aren’t the only thing motivating my mind’s mutiny, though.
Musical ones do too. A loquacious quick flashback to my mall trip on Friday, for instance:
As I waited with eyes dilated, waiting have my hypochondriac fears relinquished temporarily via retina test, I was a captive in commerce hell. When I tried to leave the mall, the assault of entry into daylight morphed me into Barnabus Collins and every photon was a stake and silver fork in my pupils. But as I reentered the mall reluctantly, something interesting happened without my visual faculties – my other senses heightened.
And as I magooed my way around, looking at the basic shapes of things and listening to beleaguering commercials play over a P.A., it was amazing just how desperate the marketing attempts suddenly seemed – even the music. Especially the music. Because when I wandered into a store called “Body Shop”, I almost laughed out loud immediately to hear the “DNSH-DNSSH-DNSCHHH!” thump of club music serving as an apt soundtrack for super slutty clothes you’d find in the closet of James St. James (if that closet also had a wormhole to 1993). It was funny both because it didn’t match with the lighting and overcrowded layout (think of a Hollister opposite) – and also because that’s exactly what I would’ve gravitated to in my late teens and early twenties. Maybe the setup didn’t work so well for this place, but there are some stores that really get it so right. When they do, within moments I’m seduced into thinking somebody finally turned on that soundtrack I’ve always believed I deserve to have playing in my everyday life – and that these jeans will complete this fantasy version of me. Nothing less will do.
That’s the key, too – to make the music so fitting that the patrons don’t even really notice it. It’s just that goldilocks backdrop that makes you think life’s exactly as it should be when you’re in this store. And just like anything else, when planning acoustics, audience matters. No one’s gonna hear party ballads in Sur La Table and feel like they’re fulfilling the fantasy they came for – of filling up the classy Hamptons home they don’t have with doo-dads they can’t afford for pretend friends.
But is that doo-dad pricetag tricking you too?
One hack that’s less about smell but still stinks if you fall for it, is the 99 cents thing. Do you feel more inclined to nab a gadget marked $23.99 than one that’s an even $24.00? Maybe not, but a lotta folk do – especially when you add in the intoxicating plug in scented candles wafting through the store or mood lighting and music. It’s literally the marketing version of when I used to need to be plastered and Quagmired into a sexy mood. They only difference is I usually puke after Nordies porks my money outta me – not during the consumer coitus. Much like my stylist’s shampoo girl who looks less grateful when I give her a fiver versus five singles at tip time, our brains don’t care that it’s only a copper Lincoln difference. ’cause penny saved is…
Well. Actually it’s much better if you save the other 2,399 pennies too.
Even so, we can’t fight it. The fact stands for consumers:
Common sense gets beat by scents and cents and resonance.
“I’ll let it slide… but only because it rhymes…”