Hello, how have you all been? It's been 10 months since I put together an episode, and something has felt fishy. There's been a scent that's been just a little bit overpowering, and I actually became super overwhelmed doing the podcast originally, but my intention was to always bring it back.
Now, there's a few reasons for this. For starters, I absolutely love being able to bring you all this information, to be able to speak to you about a topic I love, which is branding. But one of the things I wanted to do originally, which I'm not doing this time, was to try and integrate and give myself too much work to do. It stopped me from focusing on what I actually wanted to do, which was to bring you guests and make the process simple. I basically over complicated it.
I'd actually like to just say thank you for sticking around.
I use a Rode Rodecaster Pro and the original one broke. Long story, but yeah, basically, I fixed it now, which is amazing. Rode were just amazing. I've been a big fan of their products and the branding and everything for a long time. Customer service wasn't the sharpest and wasn't the quickest, but they made up for it with the actual experience that I got. They basically gave me a replacement. They said yeah, it's broken, it's just the machine, these things happen. So they sent me the upgrade -- the new model that was released after about two months of being broken. They basically reached out and said yeah, we're going to send you the brand new one. Hope you enjoy.
This is the Level Up Podcast. I'm your host, Martin Sully, a brand strategist, designer, and founder of Snapper Studio.
The Level Up Podcast is my space to shine a light on people I've been meeting and conversing with over this last sort of 10 months. Mostly on LinkedIn. There's been a bit of a shift on the Instagram platform. I'm still there, but I felt it's not been as valuable for me as the conversations I've had on LinkedIn.
Just to go back two steps and say, what happened to the old podcast? This is a conversation for another time. But anyway, I've got another podcast that I'm thinking about, that is along those lines. I'm going to explain something that gets a little bit gruesome and is kind of -- yeah, it made me go, oh wow, I really need to rename the podcast. Its background is absolutely horrific. But anyway, that was a mistake that I've made, but I am fixing.
So yeah, now you'll see the podcast has a brand new name, the podcast has a brand new identity in line with what I've also done for my business, which was to rebrand.
Today has been something that has popped up so many times over the last three to four months, has been something I've been thinking about for a while, just never kind of articulated it. And I've written a blog post about it, but this is going to be a stripped back version.
So something has been smelling fishy. That whole olfactory sense that you get when something doesn't smell quite right. And then you can really adjust opinions and change people's opinions and perceptions of your brand by looking at things like audio branding. Audio branding is things like the do do do do do, you know, I'm loving it -- McDonald's. That can become irrelevant if you've got a really consistent audio identity.
One of the absolutely strongest ones is scent branding. What do I mean by this? Your olfactory system -- basically straight up into your nose -- that hits the olfactory nerve, which is like a direct link to your brain. I am not a doctor at all. But basically, your brain picks it up, it triggers memories. It can make you think a whole bunch of things that you'd start associating with memories from your childhood. Or things that you wouldn't necessarily consider.
The best example of this in the last -- let's take you back to 2008. I was fresh out of uni, and my wife and I and my family went to America. I'd never been before. My wife had been before, and she'd been to this shop called Abercrombie and Fitch. They hit every sense of your body that you have.
We were in San Francisco and we were like a hundred meters away from the shop. And my wife just locked on to this smell and she was like, Martin, it's over there. I was like, what's over there? She was like, we can smell it. I can smell it. And she basically grabbed my arm and dragged me across the street.
Anyway, so she dragged me into this shop and a topless, very tanned, very chiselled man with muscles in places that I actually didn't know you could have muscles there, greets you. And then you get hit by this dark and moody light and everything in racks of pristine, high-quality clothes and the smell just kind of intoxicating. You get pulled in. The music was pumping. But somehow they blend everything together so it's not intrusive.
You could spend time there. You could linger, find jeans, find T-shirts. And my wife's obviously very excited to see the shop and she's got a pile of clothes that honestly, I felt was maybe bigger than Mount Everest. All I could see was two little eyes just peeping over this mountain of clothes.
Anyway, that brought me to the thing of, yeah, the different sorts of smells and things that you can use to create atmosphere. And one reason you might want to have a look at scent branding is because it's actually fairly unexplored. And could give you an edge when you're trying to connect to your customers.
I was having a conversation with a friend who's basically starting off a t-shirt company making them for people that love dogs. It's a whole line of clothing related to dogs. It's got an awesome brand name. And I mentioned scent branding to her and she was like, well, what sort of scent am I going to do? Wet dog scent. I was like, oh my God, that could be amazing.
Admittedly, I don't think many people like the smell of wet dogs. But if you're looking to do a fun campaign, on the flip side, you could totally flip it and have ideas where you send out your packaging, but your packaging could be fragranced with fresh cut grass. So it's like inviting you to take your dog on a walk, wearing your new clothes.
There are companies that specialise just in creating scents for brands. So I had no idea it was even a thing. And I'm like, oh, that's cool.
Why should you look at it? Because there are opportunities to really position your brand as separate and different to other people. And if you can positively influence consumer behaviour, get people to linger longer. If you can positively impact people's moods -- how cool is that?
According to the Sense of Smell Institute, we can recall scents with 65% accuracy after a year. As a comparison, if we were looking at a visual, it would only be 50%. So when you can combine it with the other senses, you are going to create a really stimulating campaign.
The only other thing to think about is being cautious that you are creating something that is not overstimulating. We all know there's a popular sandwich shop that I feel like -- I'm not going to name brands -- but you can guarantee, you know the one I'm talking about. That sort of herby, bready, slightly sickly smell that kind of gets thrust right into your nose. Your brain goes beep-boop, beep-boop, and you know exactly what awaits. That's that soft pillowy bread, maybe meatballs, some salads.
But yeah, that smell just connects you right to their advertising. You got that double kick -- you see the adverts on TV, and then you smell it in real life.
Luxury hotels are definitely using it -- creating that sense of like, oh look at this, this is amazing. How incredible is that? Maybe they're pumping in lavender to calm you down. They're basically just trying to create a memory and a stronger emotional connection.
But again, when you're using scents, they have got to really complement your brand's values, your audience, and give things context. So for instance, you wouldn't use calming lavender scent in a high-intensity gym or a sports shop. It kind of conflicts.
Scent marketing can be both subtle and yet very aggressive. It's aggressive because you can shoot it right out of your doors and windows, and push yourself onto people outside of the confines of your business. Get it right though, and most people won't even know that they're being targeted by you.
I have other podcasts lined up and I have this time actually got some really interesting guests that are going to be coming on and joining me. I would love to hear feedback of this episode and whether you're excited. I would also love suggestions of people that could be interested on coming into the show.
I'll leave it with my favourite little equation: T equals R plus D. Trust equals reliability and delight. The reliability is that consistency across all of the touchpoints. And then that delight -- how you get people interested, how you make them so happy that they connect the consistency and the happiness to trusting you to deliver.
