- Shoppers were subjected to a consumer version of chemical
warfare as part of an attempt by stores to drive up profits, a leading
scientist has claimed.
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- A smell similar to mother's milk was pumped into shops
through the air conditioning system at busy times to calm shoppers and
encourage them to buy more, according to Dr George Dodd.
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- The Scottish-based scientist has revealed for the first
time how his pioneering work in the field of 'osmotherapy' was used by
retailers in a series of experiments conducted in the early 1990s.
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- He claims till receipts were checked against the times
scents were released and they showed substantial increases in sales.
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- Dodd, regarded by many as Europe's leading expert in
smell technology, has spent 35 years analysing the chemical components
of scents.
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- He lives and works in Wester Ross, where he is currently
developing computer chips that can isolate the chemical components of scents.
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- But it was his earlier work on the comforting properties
of smells similar to human milk that attracted the attention of marketing
men.
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- He told Scotland on Sunday: "While I was based at
Warwick University in the early 1990s I began isolating certain human pheromones
which appeared to relax people. I called it my 'mumsy smell'."
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- Marketing firms wanted to know if the milky scent could
calm shoppers at particularly busy times, encouraging them to linger longer
and, crucially, spend more.
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- "This is not obvious stuff, like the vanilla and
fresh bread smells wafted through food halls," said Dodd. "This
is much more subtle than that. You don't know you're smelling it, but your
brain does."
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- Dodd said he took part in controlled 'osmotherapy' trials
on shoppers in London high street stores in 1993.
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- He said: "I know for definite which big well-known
London stores it was used in but I'm certainly not going to name names.
I will confirm it definitely happened, though. 'This is not obvious stuff,
like the vanilla and fresh bread smells wafting in food halls' "At
certain times of the day these relaxation-inducing smells were piped through
air conditioning systems and we carried out the trials during the busiest
period of the year: over the festive period."
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- Asked if the experiment worked, he replied: "No
question about it. We rigged the air conditioning systems to various different
departments and channelled the stuff in at certain set periods of time
when it was busiest and most crowded.
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- "We compared departments with equal levels of 'stress'
and checked till receipts against the times we set.
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- "During the periods when this idea was being tried
out the receipts spoke for themselves. Sales rose and fell according to
the levels of the 'osmotherapy factor' in that area at that time. It's
as simple as that."
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- Dodd said he had no reason to believe the technique was
not being used by retailers and had probably been developed further.
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- He added: "It is unethical and everybody knows it,
so nobody in the retail trade is going to go on record and say so, are
they? But the use of smells to control emotions is direct, effective and
cheap so those who think it doesn't happen are not being very realistic.
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- "My reason for developing it was as a beneficial
thing in medical terms. I was working on it to develop a 'mumsy smell'
tranquilliser."
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- Dodd says the milky smell he pioneered can be boosted
by the use of Indian sandalwood oil to mimic the aroma we first experience
on our mother's skin during the first few moments of life.
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- "Our sniffer cells are directly linked to the brain's
limbic system so the smells go right to where it matters, and industry
has cottoned on to this in so many ways."
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- However, retailers last night denied cottoning on to
'osmotherapy' at all.
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- A spokeswoman for Debenhams said she was "quite
unaware" of such a procedure, and both John Lewis and Marks &
Spencer were adamant that any pleasant odours in their departments were
entirely natural, such as freshly ground coffee and produce in the food
hall.
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- Asda said: "We're sweet enough already. We bake
all our bread on site so the smell wafts through the stores but we don't
have any sophisticated mechanism pumping out smells.
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- "However, in terms of warm milky smells, I don't
think it's something that we would be interested in."
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- Sainsbury's also said it did not pump fake smells around
its stores.
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- "We have genuine bread smells but we don't pump
that out, and as for the milky smell, it wouldn't be something we'd consider."
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- Safeway said: "What a crazy idea and not one for
us. We only have the smell of freshly baked bread in our stores."
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- Tesco said: "No, we don't have any plans to use
this smell. We don't use artificial smells."
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- http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/scitech.cfm?id=1366952002
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