Edition 1: Smelling
November 9, 2009
Questions to consider:
What’s your favorite smell and what memories does it unlock? How does it influence how you behave? What powerful memories does your product or service unlock?
Can you identify decay that causes people to turn away from something you are working on?
How can you provide a one-in-a-million experience versus a one-of-a-million?
5 Comments
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This is very interesting and makes me think. How many smells do we smell each day? What is the answer, in general? Loved the way you did this.
People often say that they eat with their eyes, but I think they eat with their nose. I just spent 5 minutes smelling and breathing in my freshly baked double fudge chocolate cake before cutting into it last night. That was almost as enjoyable as eating the cake itself!
Alyson, now this will sound strange, but your comment made me remember something an older South American man who belongs to my Catholic church told me awhile ago. He said that when he was a child in school back in Peru, the nuns taught him that you could sin by smelling–if you enjoyed the smell too much, like chocolate cake, and you ate too much as a result, then the source of the gluttony was smell!
Yikes! I sure hope they don’t teach things like that anymore!!!
Very interesting and thought provoking! I was thinking about how much fragrance can be a person’s signature, although this isn’t a new idea for anyone in the fragrance industry. Not too many people of my acquaintance wear cologne these days, but I have a friend who does. I wasn’t aware of how much I associate the fragrance with him, until yesterday when I smelled it and turned around expecting to see him–and it was someone else! I was so disappointed!!
That brings up another thought. In my teaching, I instruct people from all over the world and I’ve often noticed how many men from South America particularly (and Europe, although less so) wear cologne. When they dress for dinner after a long day in classes, it is quite a symphony of smells! And it’s so unusual for an American to experience so much fragrance on men. It’s a more feminine habit in this country, so it’s interesting to think about what the cultural norms about smell are.
And here’s another funny one….my Japanese friends tell me that they can tell a Westerner is in the room even if their eyes are closed. They say they can smell the meat they eat. Astonishing! Does meat even have a smell after I eat it? I think my Japanese friends smell like the soy and ginger they eat so much of. I’d bet they’d say–do soy and ginger have smells after I eat them?? Fascinating!
One smell that brings back memories for me is leaves in the fall. I have great memories of living in Robinson,KS (we moved from there when I was 5 1/2) and raking huge piles of leaves and jumping off of a ladder onto the piles. Whenever we rake our leaves and I smell that smell…it takes me back. My boys should have great “leaf” memories because they would “help” rake leaves into a big pile under one of our trees and then jump out of the tree onto the pile. Great memories! One of my favorite pictures of all time is of my two boys laying in a leaf pile!