Article

Scent of a kiosk

New technology that allows kiosk users to smell products as they appear on screen is appearing at fragrance counters and on the road with Coca-Cola.

February 27, 2002

Memories of the sweet aromas of days gone by - walking through a rose garden, sitting in your mom's kitchen, visiting the neighborhood bakery - usually bring a smile even to the crabbiest of people.

"Scent is such a powerful communication medium because it's not really interpreted by the brain, it's just sensed immediately," said Anne Kocher, vice president of sales for Aerome AG. "This is why it stays in your memory for a long time and how it can trigger memories."

Kiosks have always enjoyed a command of sight, sound and touch. Aerome, a private company based in Dusseldorf, Germany, and New York, has brought the sensation of smell to the kiosk world with its ScentController system.

"Our technology is in scent rendition and scent generation," Kocher said.

Added Michael Thayer, vice president and manager of design and engineering for kiosk manufacturer Factura Corp., which has manufactured kiosks housing Aerome's technology: "This concept was designed to create greater brand recognition for its clients by appealing to the power of scent communication."

The technology has already found an audience in the cosmetics world thanks to Estée Lauder, which has utilized the technology in two of its divisions, and Sak's Inc., which has installed ScentController kiosks in the fragrance department at its Parisian department stores in Charleston, S.C., and Huntsville, Ala.

The concept also has an audience in Europe, where Factura and NCR Corp. have teamed to manufacture ScentController kiosks. Estée Lauder, German retailer Kaufhof, and Coca-Cola are among those using ScentController technology in Europe.

Olfactory factory

At the heart of the ScentController is Aerome's fragrance generator, housed in a piece of hardware that looks like a VCR. When the ScentController is activated with a touchscreen, the device flows clean, dry air over the scent crystals, which then waft out of a grille into the air, where the consumer can breathe them in. ScentController can handle six separate scents.

Aveda has put Aerome's ScentController to work in 35 of the company's kiosks.

"It allows you to add the olfactory experience to audiovisual presentations," Kocher said.

The device can also be programmed to produce scents at key moments during a presentation. For example, Kocher said that during a one-minute commercial the ScentController can be programmed to release a scent five seconds into the spot, lasting for five seconds.

"The consumer will have the brand message reinforced by the olfactory experience in addition to the audiovisual," she said.

The variety show

Aerome and Estée Lauder applied the technology in Estée Lauder's Aveda lifestyle stores where kiosks promote the company's line of Chakra products.

"They've developed products that go with every chakra point," Kocher said, referring to the Hindu and Buddhist philosophies that there are seven energy points in the body. "For example one chakra point is called equipoise. They've developed a product that has a scent that's meant to enhance your chakra point of equipoise."

While shoppers watch and listen to an on-line explanation, the Aerome device puffs a scent into the air.

Aveda, which was purchased by Estée Lauder in 1997, has distributed 35 ScentController kiosks throughout its stores in North America.

Another Estée Lauder company, Jo Malone, took a different approach. The company installed a 42-inch plasma screen monitor equipped with ScentController in its New York store. Based on a design idea from Jo Malone and developed by Aerome, the store's system is different from Aveda in two ways.

One is the plasma screen, which Jo Malone envisioned as a customer lure. The second is in the aroma field. While the Aveda kiosk allows customers to sample individual scents, the Jo Malone system blend scents.

Jo Malone and Aerome teamed up to design this kiosk -- featuring a 48-inch plasma screen -- for Jo Malone's New York store.

"What you need always is an air nozzle, that's where the scent is released," Kocher said. "The unique part of Jo Malone's system is they have two nozzles on the screen. For example you can pick a spice fragrance and a citrus fragrance. Both would be released at the same time. You could see what it was like to blend those."

One advantage of a smell-as-you-go system is that it lets shoppers test many fragrances without having to put them on their skin, preventing them from becoming walking potpourris after a couple fragrances.

Internationalists

Jo Malone is also a member of Aerome's European clientele, offering a ScentController in its London store. Coca Cola Germany utilized a ScentController in a mobile unit that traveled the country introducing consumers to a new brand of Fanta soda.

The metallic, cone-shaped kiosks are used as demonstration models in NCR's New York office as well as overseas. The kiosk was constructed of steel and finished in automotive-quality paint finishes. The user area was fabricated from solid surface material such as Surell or Corian.

Thayer believes the cone-shaped design is the perfect vehicle for demonstrating the ScentController.

"(The kiosk) demonstrated everything from the scent of a new food giant recipe, to the aroma of the latest perfume formula, or the smell of the newest model of sport car," he said.

More, more, more

Founded in 1997 by German-based advertising agency executives Marc and Mike Meiré, Aerome's mission statement, available at its Web site, reflects the company's commitment to adding smell to the sensations available through kiosk technology.

"We continue our quest for further new possibilities of emotionalizing brands and - in the future - enriching the entertainment industry, the communication sector, and the worlds of e-commerce, games, advertising and education with the intelligent sensuality of scents," the statement reads.

But Aerome has developed several scent-oriented kiosk applications beyond the ScentController.

Dimension1 is similar to ScentController but can only release one scent and usually does not feature audio or video. Another product, HyperAir, combines air-cleaning functions with scent releases. Aerome officials said HyperAir, which is currently available in Europe, is being readied for a U.S. launch.