Scenting movie theatre commercials:The impact of scent and pictures on brand evaluations and ad recallMAY O.LWIN 1and MAUREEN MORRIN 2*1Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information,Nanyang Technological University,31Nanyang Link,Singapore,6377182School of Business Camden,Rutgers University,227Penn St.,Camden,NJ 08102,USA ABSTRACTWe utilize a novel advertising context —commercials seen in a simulated movie theater setting while ambient scent is emitted into the atmosphere —to explore the effects of multisensory cues on brand evaluation and advertising recall.Although both pictorial and olfactory cues enhance brand evaluations and ad recall overall,we find that olfactory (vs pictorial)cues generate more positive feelings toward the brand and enhance recall to a greater extent.We also find that,after a long time delay,re-experiencing the scent activates pictures ’ability to facilitate recall.Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.Copyright ©2012John Wiley &Sons,Ltd.INTRODUCTIONCinema advertising is unique because the audience tends to be attentive and engaged and is less likely to be distracted by phones or other electronic media (Philips and Noble,2007).Cinema advertising has continued to grow across the globe despite competition from other media.According to the Cinema Advertising Council,advertising revenue from movie theaters across the USA is experiencing an average annual growth rate of 21.5per cent (Fuchs,2009).Across the world,cinema advertising has continued to do well as major brands have continued to plow money into the medium.Whereas almost all cinemas rely heavily on sight and sound,theaters are now offering more opportunities for multisensory engagement.For example,cinemas have experi-mented with food scents (e.g.,chocolate smell in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory )and plant scents (e.g.,cut grass scent in Gregory ’s Girl ).In 2008,cinemas in Japan were chosen to experience various scents as moviegoers watched the film The New World (Boyd,2008).In another unique trial in Europe,the audience for the 2006movie Perfume was given scent blotters that carried the smell of urine and greasy hair to mimic aspects of the storyline (Harris,2008).Likewise,cinema advertisements utilizing scents have started appearing on the cinema landscape,with Proctor &Gamble promoting Clairol Herbal Essence in a cinema in Singapore in 2007and Nivea promoting sun cream in UK cinemas in 2008.These efforts echo earlier,rather short-lived,attempts to scent movies in the 1950s and 1960s,with techniques such as the Smell-O-Vision and AromaRama (Gilbert,2008).Newer technological scent delivery advancements suggest that current efforts are likely to grow in prominence as cinemas offer more multisensory experiences to differentiate themselves from home-viewing experiences.The cinema offers a unique context where scents can be emitted and contained for a time period within a particularphysical environment in conjunction with visual presenta-tions.To our knowledge,there has been little to no academic research on the effects of cinema commercials that engage the olfactory sense.Thus,although several practitioners are utilizing ambient scent in locations such as movie theaters,they appear to be either not measuring or not making public the ef ficacy of such efforts.As a result,other marketers may be hesitant to try such methods because of the lack of empirical evidence and thus may be overlooking a potentially powerful tool to enhance the effectiveness of in-theater advertising.1Interesting research questions are presented by this type of novel,multisensory marketing context.We are interested in the effects that scents and pictures associated with cinema ads will have on brand evaluations and advertising recall.More broadly,we are interested in what the results imply about how consumers store,integrate,and retrieve multisensory information (i.e.,pictorial and olfactory)in long-term memory.In the next section,we review prior literature and develop our hypotheses.Then,we present the results of a study in which we manipulate the presence of both olfactory and pictorial cues in commercials presented in a simulated movie theater setting.Finally,we discuss theoretical and managerial implications and limitations.LITERATURE REVIEWPrior scent researchAlthough the sense of smell has historically received relatively minimal attention from consumer researchers,interest has grown in recent years.Most of the research on scent in consumer behavior has explored the effects of ambient scent on consumer evaluations in actual or simulated retail settings (e.g.,Mitchell et al .,1995;Spangenberg et al .,1996,2006;Morrin and Chebat,2005).These results1We thank an anonymous reviewer for this insight.*Correspondence to:Maureen Morrin,School of Business Camden,Rutgers University,227Penn St.,Camden,NJ 08102,USA.E-mail:mmorrin@rutgers.eduCopyright ©2012John Wiley &Sons,Ltd.Journal of Consumer Behaviour ,J.Consumer Behav.11:264–272(2012)Published online 17April 2012in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com)DOI:10.1002/cb.1368

The impact of scent and pictures on brand evaluations and ad recall