Scent Innovation For Packaging

Using the power of scent to create interactive packaging experiences

When scent is applied to packaging, it enables consumers to engage and test products, which is proven to increase sales. A fragrance scent is more than just a smell. It’s an avenue to invite your consumers to participate with your brand and increase purchases. Additionally, it creates a new and deeper dimension with your brand reaching emotional triggers of targeted consumers.

A recent study conducted by the analytic firm Mai Reserve, confirmed that most consumers surveyed say that they are more likely to purchase a product that has a scented applied, and that brands that include scent on their packaging are significantly more likely to be considered innovative and caring.

Why Scent Marketing?

The olfactory (sense of smell) system is linked to the limbic system which evokes emotional and behavioral responses, memory and recall. All of the other senses are passed through the brain’s interpretive center where consumers process things they see or hear. Scent on the other hand, creates a flow state, where one loses the normal sense of time and is consumed in the moment which can last up to several minutes.

We can all remember a specific memory and scent that’s associated with it. The smell of a certain cologne, perfume or flower might transport you back in time to remember a distant memory, person or event. The connections and possibilities are endless.

Key facts regarding scented packaging

• It is proven to drive consumer engagement with the product and brand.
• Makes products more noticeable on shelf.
• Promotes trial and sampling at point of sale where 75% of purchase decisions are made.
• Enables consumers to make informed buying decisions.
• Enhances the shopping experience.
• Reduces product damage and returns caused when consumers open products to smell the contents.

Scent coatings add value, effectiveness, and unique point-of-difference to all types of premium packaging.

Scent Innovation

At JohnsByrne, we can incorporate “scratch-off” (activated) coating fragrances that invite tactile sensory involvement – a “one-two punch” in the user experience. Moreover, given that scented coatings can be applied during the printing process on our state-of-the-art print presses, they are highly cost-effective. Especially when you consider that scented coatings deliver the highest ROI of any other value-added print enhancement.

JohnsByrne offers standard as well as custom developed scents to match a brand scent. Rub and smell coatings are ideal for use on the outside of a package to encourage consumer interaction. The scent area is suggested to be at least 2”x2” and can be applied using a varnish or aqueous coating and perform best on coated stocks. A graphic call out is needed to prompt a consumer to ‘scratch & sniff’ the scented area.

And while adding scent to an environment is a proven approach to keeping customers shopping longer in a given store, it can be equally powerful when incorporated into premium packaging. Multi-sensory design is a powerful-yet-subtle technique to create more inviting, involving and memorable unboxing experiences and product interactions.

In-store, the addition of fragrance to product packaging has multiple benefits. Research tells us that buyers prefer products packaged with olfactory appeal vs. products with only visual appeal. And while certainly enhancing the shopping experience, it also helps reduce the inevitable damaged packaging when consumers open a given product’s package to check the actual aroma. It promotes trial even as it makes a given product more noticeable on the shelf.

The JohnsByrne Difference

Of course, achieving this kind of innovative high impact packaging on time and within budget, in keeping with a given brand’s strict quality requirements, demands an equally innovative approach to print manufacturing. At JohnsByrne, that means combining extensive in-house ingenuity, all relevant technical engineering capabilities, and tenacious client service in one location for single-source efficiency. All of this is also located in one of the industry’s most advanced, technologically superior pressrooms that’s backed by end-to-end quality practices.

And it includes the clear advantage of “institutional memory:” successful solutions for a given client are always available for later projects, ready to be adapted to a new challenge. It also allows our creative teams to offer genuine refinement to clients’ design concepts, including alternatives they hadn’t considered.

JohnsByrne’s teamwork, talent, commitment, and passion together with our singular business model, is the secret combination that gives JohnsByrne clients a competitive advantage with premium packaging that never fails to impress.

Contact us today to start using the power of scent to create interactive packaging experiences for your customers.