The Story

A couple weeks ago, we talked about how brands can be heard. Today, the nose takes center stage.

It’s true: brands can be smelled. The leaders behind any strong brand can step back, ask themselves “what does ______’s brand smell like”…and actually respond intelligently. That’s because they understand how multi-sensory brands are, and have asked themselves this question before. And more importantly, they’ve answered it, and acted on it.
OK, if you’re a bank or credit union, your first thought about smell likely revolves around the scents found in your branches. OK, fair enough–that’s something to consider. In fact, I’d argue that for Les Schwab Tire Centers (an unexpectedly strong brand that really does stand for something), the unmistakable and surprisingly pleasant scent of fresh rubber and popcorn is actually quite distinct. I think it’s the amazing experience they deliver that makes that scent have such positive associations in the minds of its customers.

But like most brand examples, you’ll usually need to dig a little deeper to find a more meaningful way to build some olfactory equity in your brand. If you’re trying to incorporate scent into your brand, one good place to start may actually be one of the other senses where you’ve got some equity. You see, most elements of your brand don’t fit neatly within ONLY one sense–they tend to have traits in multiple. For instance, if your brand has built equity in a taste–say, coffee–there’s a smell opportunity in there as well. In fact, leveraging both the taste and smell aspects of coffee will likely make the equity in coffee all the stronger.

Other applications of scent might not be so literal, but more conceptual. For instance (and like normal, I’m making this example up on the spot), if your bank or credit union is positioning itself as the resource for young mothers, you might tap into that identity and create equity in some kind of complementary scent that solidifies that position. Maybe you’d choose baby powder as a relevant scent. Or that fresh scent of almost-dry laundry.

Whatever the solution, one thing’s for sure: if you know–really, clearly know–what your brand stands for, there is always a way to add a whole new dimension and level of depth by building equity into the sense of smell associated with who you are.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 5th, 2007 at 8:45 pm and is filed under Bank Branding, Credit Union Branding, Bank Marketing, Experiential Marketing, Branding, Multisensory Marketing and 5 Senses Branding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.