3 ms·

What am I? A Salad? Am I taking a bath or stocking a buffet? Spot on! always wondered why these utility product guys give food smells to those products

moe 18y ago
There's probably been a lot of research in that area and just that happend to come out on top. The "food/hungry" analogy may not even be too far off. I mean - it's one of our basic instincts.
- biohacker42 18y ago
  Weren't there popsci articles 10+ plus years ago about how food scents are the most attractive... but obviously no one would ever make a food scented deodorant, that's just silly.
  - moe 18y ago
    Huh? But, as the article states, many deodorants are food scented. In fact pretty much all household chemicals are food scented. It's all orange, apple, grape, lemon, vanilla etc.
    - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
      I figured this discussion would get nerdy in a hurry. As far as I know, the trend towards more and more products having fruit odors is very recent. 10 - 20 years ago we had lemon and orange, but mostly things smelled like soap or like flowers. This has all changed with SuperFruits just a few years ago ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfruit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfruit ) For more information on the fruity trend, try this http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+new+smell+of+clean:+fragrance+in+household+products+is+a+key...-a0192639329 http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+new+smell+of+clean:+fragra... Key quote: Through consumer research over the years, we've learned that fragrance is a competitive advantage in driving performance...Emerging superfruits, including mangosteen, jujube, baobab and camu camu, are fragrances of interest for future product launches in the household product category
    - JacobAldridge 18y ago
      I think that was the point. Ten years ago they said it would be silly, now it's successful. Ten years ago you'd be silly competing with Yahoo and AltaVista... And no, I'm not suggesting making your search engine smell like food will help. That would be silly.
    - biohacker42 18y ago
      Another thing I've heard is that because things like tone of voice are not present, sarcasm is very hard to pick up in emails and online posts... but that's just silly, no one is that easily befuddled.

moe 18y ago

There's probably been a lot of research in that area and just that happend to come out on top. The "food/hungry" analogy may not even be too far off. I mean - it's one of our basic instincts.

biohacker42 18y ago
Weren't there popsci articles 10+ plus years ago about how food scents are the most attractive... but obviously no one would ever make a food scented deodorant, that's just silly.
- moe 18y ago
  Huh? But, as the article states, many deodorants are food scented. In fact pretty much all household chemicals are food scented. It's all orange, apple, grape, lemon, vanilla etc.
  - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
    I figured this discussion would get nerdy in a hurry. As far as I know, the trend towards more and more products having fruit odors is very recent. 10 - 20 years ago we had lemon and orange, but mostly things smelled like soap or like flowers. This has all changed with SuperFruits just a few years ago ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfruit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfruit ) For more information on the fruity trend, try this http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+new+smell+of+clean:+fragrance+in+household+products+is+a+key...-a0192639329 http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+new+smell+of+clean:+fragra... Key quote: Through consumer research over the years, we've learned that fragrance is a competitive advantage in driving performance...Emerging superfruits, including mangosteen, jujube, baobab and camu camu, are fragrances of interest for future product launches in the household product category
  - JacobAldridge 18y ago
    I think that was the point. Ten years ago they said it would be silly, now it's successful. Ten years ago you'd be silly competing with Yahoo and AltaVista... And no, I'm not suggesting making your search engine smell like food will help. That would be silly.
  - biohacker42 18y ago
    Another thing I've heard is that because things like tone of voice are not present, sarcasm is very hard to pick up in emails and online posts... but that's just silly, no one is that easily befuddled.