What the Nose Knows - Avery Gilbert [86]
That the nose and brain respond to subliminal smells under ultraprecise laboratory conditions is not surprising, but are the effects robust enough to make a difference in the real world? The classic demonstration of covert selling power dates back to 1932. Donald Laird had male students at Colgate University pose as market researchers and go door-to-door in Utica, New York. The young men presented housewives with four samples of identical silk stockings and asked them point to their favorite pair. The stockings varied only in smell: the unadorned product had a slightly rancid character; the others were lightly scented with either narcissus, a fruity note, or a sachet fragrance. Laird’s team completed 250 interviews before one suspicious lady called the cops, and when the police report made the local newspapers, the study’s cover was blown. Of the 250 women, only six were aware that the stockings were scented. Despite this, there was a clear influence of scent on stocking preference: 50 percent of the women chose the narcissus-scented pair, 24 percent chose the fruity pair, 18 percent chose the sachet scent, and the natural hose were selected by only 8 percent.
Smell alters our behavior in daily life, in the trivial sense that a whiff near lunchtime may steer us toward a burrito instead of a pizza. The subliminality of the message—whether I smell a pizza before I have a conscious desire to buy one—is of no more consequence than whether I heard a pizza ad on my commute that morning. In either case, the compulsion—or lack thereof—is about the same.
Still, subliminal advertising continues to frighten people who should know better. The European Chemoreception Research Organization, a society of smell and taste researchers, recently editorialized about a study done by some of its members, in which smells were presented along with odor-evocative words. The results: people found a cheesy aroma less unpleasant when it was paired with the phrase “cheddar cheese” than when it was paired with “body odor.” The power of suggestion was so strong that people reported that even clean air smelled bad when labeled “body odor.” This entirely predictable outcome was enough for ECRO to raise an alarm: “Unfortunately this fact offers powerful tools for manipulating the information and directing the choice of consumers towards particular foods, perfumes, [and] detergents,” a possibility that, “disturbingly,” could lead to “misleading messages.” Shocker! Ads seek to manipulate consumer choice. EU bureaucrats will have a field day drafting regulations banning smell fraud in advertising.
Contrary to popular belief, the Federal Communications Commission has no formal rules about subliminal advertising, smelly or otherwise. In fact, the FCC has investigated only one complaint about subliminal messages. In 1987 it found that Dallas radio station KMEZ-FM broadcast a program containing them. Which dastardly corporation was responsible for this outrage? Well…none, actually. The subliminals were hidden in an antismoking program aired on behalf of the American Cancer Society.
The idea of subliminal advertising continues to haunt the field. Merchants who use ambient scent are reluctant to talk about it because they don’t want the public to view them as zombie masters. They could defuse the issue by debunking the power of subliminals, but they don’t—perhaps because they too believe in it, if only a little bit. Subliminal perception is now something experts debate as they recommend fragrance levels for their retail clients. Michelle Harper,