Wake Up and Smell the Copy
I’m a sucker for a great smelling candle.
Vanilla, pumpkin pie, cocoa butter, hazelnut, strawberries & cream. You name it! chances are I’ll sit there inhaling it longer than is healthy.
Almost every one of the scents I’ve listed above triggers some sort of vivid memory in my head.
Photo by Element5 Digital from Pexels
Pumpkin spice, for example, conjures memories of many a bonfire night, trick or treating, and that time I was lucky enough to enjoy a traditional Thanksgiving dinner in America, (my god, what I’d do for another slice of homemade pumpkin pie.) Vanilla, meanwhile, reminds me of running to find the ice cream van as a kid, Nestle Milkybar desserts, crème caramels, pale yellow buttercups, fresh bed sheets, and the irresistible song ‘Soothing’ by Laura Marling.
Which leads me to my main focus for this blog post:
The Proustian effect, the power of olfactory cues, and how these can help your business or brand.
The Proust phenomenon (as it’s also known) is named after the French writer Marcel Proust and his novel, À la recherche du temps perdu, in which he recalls vivid childhood memories, sparked involuntarily by a quick dip of a madeline biscuit into a cup of tea. Now, while I know what they are, I’ve never actually tasted a madeleine biscuit, nor dunked one in tea. Yet, reading that sentence, I can smell the sweet, creamy, buttery aroma and my mouth starts salivating for a biscuit of any kind (hello Pavlov’s dog effect!). You too? Alright. Grab a couple and get back here.
Little wonder then, that the Proustian effect is the theory that distinctive smells wield more power than any other sense to help us recall distant memories and emotions. [1]
Many studies have successfully demonstrated the powerful effect fragrances have, and their remarkable ability to instinctively and subconsciously drive human behaviour. [2]
Ever been tempted by the rich, velvety aroma of roasted cocao beans in a Thorntons shop, or seduced by a smack-bang-in-your-face whiff of that bold, juicy, Skittles-esque scent as you stroll past your local Lush store? That’s the power of olfactory cues for you.
All this is fine, I hear you say, but you can’t ‘smell’ a word.
What does any of this have to do with copywriting?
How can this help my business?
Read up, my friend.
Sensory Cues
It’s early days when it comes to studies regarding olfactory percepts and linguistics. Although, one recent (2018) study I do recommend getting your beak stuck into - if you’re interested - is The Language of Smell: Connecting linguistic and psychophysical properties of odor descriptors. [3]
I’m often surprised at how few olfactory cues are used in non-literary writing. Most sensory triggers (quite rightly) are scaling the pages of books and adverts everywhere; sight, taste, touch; yet those poor little nostrils seem sorely neglected. Yes, many of these go hand in hand, inextricably linked. E.g. you can ‘taste’ freshly baked cookies, as well as smelling them. In fact, studies claim that between 75 and 95 % of what we think of as taste actually results from the stimulation of olfactory receptors in the nose instead, so maybe taste cues should be called olfactory cues too. [4] But before you think of these as synonymous, remember these:
Petrichor: The distinctive scent following the first rain after a long spell of humid weather
Play-doh: Commonly referred to as ‘the smell of childhood.’
The smell of old books
That ‘freshly cut grass’ smell: Interestingly this smell is actually caused by the chemical (don’t you have any sympathy?) but our olfactory association with warm summer days, spring, and weekends is so strong that we typically enjoy it.
Sea breeze
Freshly washed laundry
Lynx Africa: The deodorant every guy has been gifted for Christmas, at least twice.
Johnson’s baby powder: Come on, what 90s kid doesn’t remember this smell?
Point is, it’s important to consider the way a sentence ‘smells’, especially if you’re dealing with smellies or food. I don’t know about you, but I have no trouble conjuring a clear smell from words alone (e.g. warm baked cookies, or Lynx Africa) and I’ve asked around friends, who say the same.
Behind this phenomenon is synaesthesia. When we are children, our senses bridge to help facilitate our learning and build powerful associations. For many people, most of these bridges break as we get older and no longer need them. However some of them still remain. It took me until I was 21 to realise that ‘seeing’ numbers, letters, and music in colour and ‘hearing’ pain isn’t the norm, which leaves me convinced that various types of synaesthesia must be more common than we think. Using this mix up of the senses is becoming increasingly popular in advertising and to great effect. Think Skittle’s ‘Taste the rainbow’ or Coca Cola’s ‘Taste the feeling.’
That’s right. Done right, cultural synaesthesia sells.
Big time.
These cross-sensory associations have proven so effective, that even trademark protection has been extended to cover colors, shapes, sounds, and scents. Such as that of ‘Tiffany Blue’; Tiffany’s distinct shade of robin’s-egg blue, which was trademarked in 1998. [5] Or play-doh who trademarked it’s signature scent in 2018. [6]
Sure, we all experience the world differently, and what makes one person salivate might make another person puke. Still, there is a reasonable understanding that:
Fragrant Madagascan vanilla
Smells nicer than
Putrid old piss
This understanding is further clarified by supplementing these phrases with modifiers:
The sweet, succulent aroma, of fragrant Madagascan vanilla.
The rotten, stomach-churning stench of putrid old piss.
You’d never describe putrid old piss as sweet and succulent, amirite?
It’s important to remember you don’t want people to simply read what you have to offer You want people to begin to experience it. Just because it’s not a novel, doesn’t mean the reader can’t - or shouldn’t - get caught up in it.
Aromatic copy can create exactly the kind of scent your desired clients are compelled to follow.
If your copy smells bland, bleak, or even a bit fishy, you can say goodbye to those sales. Bake your copy with the comfort of warm gooey cookies (or whatever scent captures the essence of your brand best), and you’ll soon have exactly your kind of folks flocking up to find out what you offer.
I’m a Plumber! What good will olfactory cues do for my sales?
Ok ok, sure, it won’t always apply, at least in the same way. ‘Discover the secret to solving that eggy, putrid aroma in your pipes’ might not go down such a treat.
Why not try:
Photo by Digital Buggu from Pexels
‘Musty sink? Whiff of egg from the shower? Healthy plumbing needn’t be a pipe dream! Let me get them squeaky clean and working like a well-oiled machine again in no time.’
or
‘Plumbing being a rotten egg? We’ll get things smelling clean and working like a dream again in no time.’
It’s a rough example, but it does illustrate how even smells that aren’t appealing can be used to your advantage if they reflect the nature of your business. Yes you might be associated with some foul smells as well as those that are fresh and clean, but that’s exactly what you want. When someone discovers a musty sink or eggy shower (vomit), you want YOU, the Plumber, to pop into their head. When they’re thinking about how to sort that blocked toilet, and fresh smelling air seems but a ‘pipe dream’, you want them to think of YOU!
Yes, YOU.
Coming to the rescue with your toilet-mending tools!
Then of course there are the products and services for which olfaction is essential.
If you sell perfume, baked goods, e-liquid, candles, your copy is probably begging for olfactory cues. After all, it’s the smell that stimulates the craving. Same applies for tourist destinations, hotels and holiday guides, coffee shops and cafes, mountaineering and hiking shops and more. Why?
Use sensory writing, complete with olfactory cues, and you’ll paint a much richer experience of the potential trip, product, or service your client will receive, before they’ve even clicked past your home page, helping to drive their behaviour in much the same way as a cleverly fragranced store.
Target ALL the relative senses and your business will be brimming with that wholesome, ‘wish you were here’ kind of appeal.
Fill your text with olfactory features and you’ll be cranking that ‘FOMO’ effect to the full.
Repeat this often enough and you might even establish the Pavlov’s dog effect too. Now, that sort of cross-sensory correspondence is unbreakable.
This is why it can (quite literally) pay to hire a good copywriter.
Still wondering whether you should hire a copywriter? Take a look at some of the top reasons to get a good freelance copywriter on board.
Sources
[1] Smells Ring Bells: How Smell Triggers Memories and Emotions - https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/brain-babble/201501/smells-ring-bells-how-smell-triggers-memories-and-emotions
[2] Influence of Fragrances on Human Psychophysiological Activity - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5198031/
[3] The language of smell: Connecting linguistic and psychophysical properties of odor descriptors. -https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29763790
[4] Just how much of what we taste derives from the sense of smell? - https://flavourjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13411-015-0040-2
[5] How Tiffany & Co. Monopolized a Shade of Blue - https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-tiffany-monopolized-shade-blue
[6] Hasbro trademarks Play-Doh's signature scent, and WTF you can trademark a smell? - https://mashable.com/2018/05/19/hasbro-play-doh-smell-trademark/?europe=true