How to Combine Scents with Colors in Fragrance Marketing

colors in fragrance marketing

There are bodies that classify odor according to mainly colors and color classifications. In my opinion, this is only one of many possible approaches you can make and not always 100% usable. However, I thought it important enough to share this interesting and rich vision with you.

The effect of smell in general

The human olfactory system is in direct connection with the limbic system in the brain. This area also houses the storage for memory and memories. This is also where our emotions are formed.

Scents contain a great deal of information about our memories and emotions. This information is absorbed by individuals the moment the scent is sniffed. The information is sent to the brain via our nervous system where it is linked to stored memories, emotions and other stored information. As a result, you are either attracted to the environment you are in or….repelled…. Of course, the latter is not what you want to trigger as a retailer or defender of a brand.

If the information contained in the scent matches the other external stimuli (color, music, taste, touch) that are perceived, then a “match” is created and scent has a positive supportive effect toward our well-being and emotions. If the perceived smell does not connect, on the other hand, you create a strong repulsion because, after all, our sense of smell has the most influence relative to our other senses regarding emotions.

Based on the above premise, you can create an “Odor Route Plan.” The purpose of this plan is to choose a good fragrance according to the purpose the user wants to achieve with the fragrance. In this particular case, we are going to do this through color cards.

Odors in commercial spaces:

What do you need to consider?

First you need to identify the goal you wish to achieve with scent marketing:

Want to communicate your business more clearly to your target audience and make it more recognizable so that you increase your differentiation factor.
Do you want to create a certain atmosphere where your target audience will stay longer in your store or business, thus highlighting more products or services? So you want to increase perception.
Want to make your brand or product stand out from your competitors.

With the first goal, the idea is to positively influence the company’s appearance through smell. The second goal involves trying to create a certain “mood” or atmosphere. Usually, you want people to stay longer in your store or business with the end goal of making the product or brand more appealing.

The third goal is very specifically about fragrances that fit the identity of brands increasing its recognition and recall value. This could include clothing brands, car brands (new car smell), etc….

Next, you need to describe the concept where the fragrance will be applied. It is important to know which target audience the fragrance is aimed at. In addition, other influences in the environment are important that are observed. All of these aspects must be consistent with each other to achieve the best result.

Ultimately, you are going to let the fragrance choice depend on the colors used. In this way, we have now arrived at fragrance selection based on color classifications. When people smell smells, they can automatically and easily think of a color to go with it. The stronger the correlation between the two the more natural and natural the scent is perceived and the more effective scent marketing becomes.

Therefore, here we summarize different emotions in a color, that color is then linked to some scents of our own by way of illustration. This makes them reinforce each other, triggering our Limbic system in harmony and thus positively influencing our emotions.

In this way, the ultimately chosen scent contains the right information to best support your product/service or brand while conveying the right message to your target audience.

Color classification, scents and emotions:

Here we present you 14 different colors together with a description of their displayed emotions and the fragrances in our range that correspond to them. This is just one example to demonstrate the ways in which an odor choice can be determined. On the other hand, I am convinced that there are other factors at play. Therefore, this approach should be best complemented by the influence of our other senses that are stimulated during odor perception when making a final choice.

I am convinced that in reading the information below you will be pleasantly surprised and in many cases experience confirmation of what you have always subconsciously sensed.

Enjoy reading and watching!