What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life (33 page)

odors in his machine
Herb A. Lightman, “This Movie Has Scents!”
American Cinematographer
, February 1960, p. 92.

Laube shuttled
Interview with Carmen Laube, April 24, 2006, and with Novia Laube, April 27, 2006.

on a daily basis
Interview with Hal Williamson, April 28, 2006.

needed extra time
“‘Smell-O-Vision’ to Get Film Test,”
New York Times
, August 19, 1959.

second U.S. patent
“Motion pictures with synchronized odor emission,” U.S. Patent 2,905,049, issued September 22, 1959; mentioned in “Times Square Conveyor System to Replace Shuttle Is Patented,”
New York Times
, September 26, 1959.

“rushing plans”
“Todd ‘Smell’ Film May Be Scooped; Reade Rushes Own Picture to Beat ‘Scent of Mystery’,”
New York Times
, October 17, 1959; $300,000 is equal to $2.15 million in 2007 dollars.

At a press conference
“Todd Rival Leading in Smell-Film Race,”
New York Times
, October 27, 1959.

“obviously rushing to beat”
“Scented Movies: The First Sniff?”
Newsweek
, November 9, 1959, p. 106.

“the battle of the smellies”
“Oranges Blossomed in ’23 Revue,”
Variety
, November 4, 1959.

Installation costs
$3,500 to $7,500 equals $25,000 to $54,000 in 2007 dollars.

raises a question
Unlike Scentovision, Inc. and AromaRama Industries, Inc. which were both incorporated in New York state, there is no New York record of the Weiss Screen-Scent Corporation.

“The glory that was AromaRama”
Joan Didion, “Smellie on Seventh Avenue,”
National Review
, January 30, 1960, pp. 83–84.

“neither so clear nor pleasurable”
Bosley Crowther, “On Making Scents: AromaRama Turns Out a Movie Stunt,”
New York Times
, December 13, 1959.

Luz Gunsberg had the same reaction
Interview with Luz Gunsberg, June 7, 2006.

“strong enough to give”
“A Sock in the Nose,”
Time
, December 21, 1959,p. 57.

“quite a massive assault”
John McCarten, “Inhalant,” The
New Yorker
, December 19, 1959, p. 125.

“Your clothes reeked”
Interview with Hal Williamson, April 28, 2006.

perfumer Selma Weidenfeld
“Film Produced in Red China Turns Out to Be a Smeller,”
Los Angeles Times
, December 13, 1959.

“the machine-made olfactory flavors”
“Behind the Great Wall: The sweet smell of success—via novelty, unenduring values,”
Variety
, December 16,1959.

“worked part-time”
Interview with Paul Baise, June 22, 2006.

On his Christmas card
Glenda Jensen,
The 70mm Newsletter
, 2005.

only enough prints
“Are Smellies Bottled B.O. Sunshine?”
Variety
, December 16, 1959.

the entertainment included
Judith Cass, “Recorded at Random” column,
Chicago Daily Tribune
, January 9, 1960.

was received warmly
“Diverting Tale Told with Nostril-Appeal,”
Variety
, January 13, 1960; John McCarten, “Fragrant Frolic,”
The New Yorker
, February 27, 1960, p. 131; “Nose Opera,”
Time
, February 29, 1960, p. 98.

“whole silly plot”
Comments from Bosley Crowther in “Screen: Olfactory Debut,”
New York Times
, February 19, 1960, and “How Does It Smell?”
New York Times
, February 28, 1960.

“Bill got this idea”
“An interview with Mike Todd Jr.” by Roy Frumkes, posted on in
70mm.com
, January 9, 2004.

“a somewhat timid revolutionist”
Hollis Alpert,
The Dreams and the Dreamers
(Macmillan, 1962), p. 179.

“He was at his best”
Michael Todd Jr. and Susan McCarthy Todd,
A valuable property,
p. 102.

cynical rabbit punch
In late November, 1959, Mike Todd Jr. announced that
Scent of Mystery
would open in Los Angeles on January 27. Reade immediately postponed his own L.A. opening, which had been set for December 23. Later, with only a week’s notice, he opened
Behind the Great Wall
at the Four Star Theater on Wilshire Boulevard on January 15—ten days earlier and two blocks down the street from Todd’s film. Once again, Reade had stolen Mike junior’s thunder. “Unique Film Will Screen,”
Los Angeles Times
, November 24, 1959; “Musical ‘80 Days’ Readied for Stage,”
Los Angeles Times
, December 15, 1959; “‘Great Wall’ Will Screen,”
Los Angeles Times
, January 7, 1960.

Chapter 9. Zombies at the Mall

“All around the world”
Martin Lindstrom,
Brand Sense: Build Powerful Brands through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound
(New York: Free Press, 2005), p. 98.

happening everywhere
“Dollars and Scents: The Nose Knows, or Does It?”
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
, August 19, 2004; Linda Tischler, “Smells Like Brand Spirit,”
Fast Company
, August 2005, p. 52; “Smells Like a Sheraton,”
Washington Post
, March 5, 2006.

latest in a long history
Edward M. Ruttenber, “Sense of smell—an Important Factor in All Modern Merchandising,” reprinted from the
Daily News Record
(New York) in
American Perfumer & Essential Oil Review
, June 1925,p. 208; “‘Sell by Smell’ New Marketing Slogan,”
Forbes
, July 1, 1934, pp. 14–15; Edward Podolsky, “Odors as sales stimulators,”
The Management Review
28 (September 1939):320; Francis Sill Wickware, “They’re After Your Nose Now,”
The Saturday Evening Post
, June 21, 1947, p. 26.

Today’s merchandisers
“Sweet Smell of Sidewalls,”
New York Times
, February 11, 2007; “A Bowling Ball with Snap (and Scent),”
New York Times
, May 6, 2007; “Scent and Sensibility,”
New York Times
, September 9, 2007; “Sniff…and spend,”
Los Angeles Times
, August 20, 2007.

“perhaps the most powerful”
“Starbucks Stirred to Refocus on Coffee,”
Wall Street Journal
, February 26, 2007.

“the stench of beer and sweat”
“Luminar to Fight Smoking Ban with Sex Toys and Scent,”
The Independent
(London), May 18, 2007.

social psychologist Robert Baron
Robert A. Baron, “The sweet smell of…helping: Effects of pleasant ambient fragrance on prosocial behavior in shopping malls,”
Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin
23 (1997):498–503.

“We wanted to make”
Bijal Trivedi, “Recruiting smell for the hard sell,”
New Scientist
2582 (December 16, 2006).

chemist and physicist E. E. Free
“Ancestral Memories in Smells,”
The Literary Digest
, November 1, 1924, pp. 70–71.

scientists continue to offer
BBC News, February 19, 2004:
news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/3502821.stm
; Ann Quigley, “Smell, emotion processor in brain may be altered in depressed patients,” Health Behavior News Service, press release March 10, 2003, Center for the Advancement of Health; Emma Cook, “What’s Getting Up Your Nose?: These Days, If It Doesn’t Smell It Doesn’t Sell,”
The Independent
(London); Marilyn Larkin, “Sniffing out memories of holidays past,”
Lancet
354 (1999):2142.

two equally pleasant fragrances
A. M. Fiore, X. Yah, and E. Yoh, “Effects of a product display and environmental fragrancing on approach responses and pleasurable experiences,”
Psychology & Marketing
17 (2000):27–54.

in an actual gift store
A. S. Mattila and J. Wirtz, “Congruency of scent and music as a driver of in-store evaluations and behavior,”
Journal of Retailing
77 (2001):273–89.

photos of a store
E. R. Spangenberg, B. Grohmann, and D. E. Sprott, “It’s beginning to smell (and sound) a lot like Christmas: The interactive effects of ambient scent and music in a retail setting,”
Journal of Business Research
58(2005):1583–89.

“We’re Muzak for your nose”
“Muzak Cuts Jobs; Partners with ScentAir,”
Fort Mill Times
, July 7, 2005.

business professor Eric Spangenberg
E. R. Spangenberg, D. E. Sprott, et al., “Gender-congruent ambient scent influences on approach and avoidance behaviors in a retail store,”
Journal of Business Research
59 (2006): 1281–87.

manipulated the scent of a mall
J.-C. Chebat and R. Michon, “Impact of ambient odors on mall shoppers’ emotions, cognition and spending: A test of competitive causal theories,”
Journal of Business Research
56(2003):529–39.

“one of those subliminal things”
Tischler, “Smells Like Brand Spirit,” p. 52.

According to the psychologist Anthony Pratkanis
Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson,
Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion
(New York: W. H. Freeman, 1992); Anthony R. Pratkanis, “The Cargo-cult Science of Subliminal Persuasion,”
Skeptical Inquirer
, Spring 1992.

Key—now an elderly man
Dominic Streatfeild,
Brainwash: The Secret History of Mind Control
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007).

German researcher Thomas Hummel
T. Hummel, J. Mojet, and G. Kobal, “Electro-olfactograms are present when odorous stimuli have not been perceived,”
Neuroscience Letters
397 (2006):224–28.

other researchers have observed
V. Treyer, H. Koch, et al., “Male subjects who could not perceive the pheromone 5[.alpha]-androst-16-en-3-one, produced similar orbitofrontal changes on PET compared with perceptible phenylethyl alcohol (rose),”
Rhinology
44 (2006):278–82.

Psychologists in the Netherlands
R. W. Holland, M. Hendriks, and H. Aarts, “Smells like clean spirit: Nonconscious effects of scent on cognition and behavior,”
Psychological Science
16 (2005):689–93.

demonstration of covert selling power
D. A. Laird, “How the consumer estimates quality by subconscious sensory impressions; with special reference to the role of smell,”
Journal of Applied Psychology
16 (1932):241–46.

a study done by some of its members
I. E. de Araujo, E. T. Rolls, et al., “Cognitive modulation of olfactory processing,”
Neuron
46 (2005):671–79.

“Unfortunately this fact offers”
ECRO newsletter, Spring 2005, p. 6.

the FCC has investigated
FCC press statement, September 19, 2000: “The FCC’s Investigation of ‘Subliminal Techniques’: From the Sublime to the Absurd.”

something experts debate
Harper quoted in “Dollars and Scents of Business,” in the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
, June 6, 2007; Faranda quoted in “Scent: New Frontiers in Branding,” in
CGI Magazine
, May 2007.

“rank commercialism”
C. Haill, “‘Buy a Bill of the Play!’”
Apollo
126, new series 302 (1987):279–85; Calvin Trillin quoted in “Ugh, the Smell of It,”
Time,
October 7, 1996.

the legacy of Fred and Gale Hayman
Steve Ginsberg,
Reeking Havoc: The Unauthorized Story of Giorgio
(New York: Warner Books, 1989), pp. 128ff, 142ff.

the ScentStrip Sampler
Everett M. Turnbull and Jack W. Charbonneau, “Fragrance-releasing pull-apart sheet,” U.S. Patent 4,487,801 issued December 11, 1984.

a scented full-page movie ad
“Marketing Ploy Makes Scents,”
Los Angeles Times
, September 5, 2007; Thomas Claburn, “Newspapers smell profit in scented ads,”
InformationWeek
, January 29, 2007; “Joint Promotion Adds Stickers to Sweet Smell of Marketing,”
New York Times
, April 2, 2007;
Angewandte Chemie International Edition
, April 27, 2007; “Scent Noses Its Ways into More Ad Efforts,”
Wall Street Journal
, October 8, 2007.

“Whereas you can exercise the choice”
Emma Cook, “What’s Getting Up Your Nose?”
The Independent
(London), May 16, 1999.

“The television screen shows”
A. S. Byatt, “How We Lost Our Sense of Smell,”
The Guardian
online, September 1, 2001.

Byatt’s fiction is riddled
A. S. Byatt,
Little Black Book of Stories
(New York: Knopf, 2004) and
The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye
(New York: Random House, 1994).

“What vile marketing decision”
Mark Morford, “ScentStories Up Your Nose,”
SFGate.com
, November 24, 2004.

“What was once a vital instrument”
G. G. Wayne and A. A. Clinco, “Psychoanalytic observations on olfaction, with special reference to olfactory dreams,”
Psychoanalysis and the Psychoanalytic Review
46 (1959):64–79.

“Until recently, appealing to our sense of smell”
Cook, “What’s Getting Up Your Nose?”

Febreze odor eliminator is equally popular
“Sensing Opportunity in Dormitory Air,”
New York Times
, January 3, 2007.

Chapter 10. Recovered Memories

“Were they all collected”
Ellen Burns Sherman, “The Redolent World,”
New England Magazine
43 (1910):319–21.

“voluptuary of smell”
Diane Ackerman,
An Alchemy of Mind
(New York: Scribner, 2004), p. 114.

“great blazer of scent trails”
Diane Ackerman,
A Natural History of the Senses
(New York: Random House, 1990), p. 17.

“Proust may have been prescient”
R. S. Herz and J. W. Schooler, “A naturalistic study of autobiographical memories evoked by olfactory and visual cues: Testing the Proustian hypothesis,”
American Journal of Psychology
115(2002):21–32.