Researchers have found that smellizing- imagining a smell- increases consumers' desire to consume and purchase advertised food products, and it could be the next step toward more effective advertising.
Researchers came to this conclusion through four studies of products most of us would like to smellize: cookies and cake.
Professor of Marketing Maureen Morrin of Temple University's Fox School of Business co-authored the study to examine the impact imagining what a food smells like would have on consumer behavior.
Participants who looked at print advertisements were prompted by questions such as: Fancy a freshly baked cookie?; Feel like a chocolate cake?; and Feel like a freshly baked cookie? Look for these in a store near you.
Morrin found that these types of headlines had a positive impact on desire to consume the product, if they were accompanied by a call to also imagine the smell of the food.
This positive impact was strongest when the image of the product could be seen at the same time study participants imagined the smell.
According to the study, olfactory imagery processing is different from that of the other senses, especially vision.
The researchers also found that actually smelling the advertised products was even more effective on the various measures of consumer response than merely imagining the smells. But it's not always feasible to present consumers with product odors in advertisements.
The study was published in the Journal of Consumer Research.
