Stink Out Among Refined Retailers

After taking in “Modern Marvels: Stink,” on the History Channel, I sensed better how the odor elimination pulling in the largest total profits at retail seems to be for smells consumers aren’t sure even exist. The 1920’s ad that introduced the term “B.O.” to our lexicon as a shorthand for “body odor” recommended women smell the underarm areas of their dresses as a check upon taking off a dress. An early ad for Listerine profiled the tragedy of a woman who failed to realize her bad breath prevented her from ever marrying.
     When Febreze was first introduced to retail shelves as an odor eliminator, one ad showed a woman complaining that her jacket smelled like cigarette smoke, and another ad showed a woman worrying that her couch smelled like her pet dog. The ads didn’t sell the product. Researchers found that most consumers whose jackets smelled like cigarettes or whose couches smelled like dogs were so accustomed to the odors, they didn’t realize stinks were there. They felt no need for an odor eliminator. To sell the product well enough at retail, it was necessary to convince consumers to use Febreze as a preventative, not a curative.
     Social security is the approach I recommend you use in selling the abundance of products customers buy to mask or eliminate their unpleasant odors. This sales technique also works for products to neutralize odors consumers are fully aware they’re exuding or experiencing.
     Another takeaway for me from “Stink” was reminders of ways in which personal history and situational context influence consumers’ judgments that an odor is foul. The cattle ranch smell which keeps a city dweller from buying a home nearby might seem to a country boy like a reminder of youth. Visitors to Yellowstone Park get out of their cars and actually walk briskly toward the rotten eggs smell of the bubbling mud because it goes along with a tourist experience.
     Last week, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States, advised the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops before the Conference selected their new leadership. The New York Times reported that the ambassador said Pope Francis wants bishops to be shepherds who know the smell of sheep.
     Sheep might not smell as bad as hogs or cows. Still, tolerating unpleasantness for a greater good sticks out as another principle some consumers use and retailers should therefore attend to.

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Check That Your Store Smells Good 
Impress with the Exotic