Cribs: Inside ScentAir’s headquarters and production floor

In fact, you’ve probably smelled their scents almost everywhere you’ve gone – they’re the largest, most experienced scent marketing firm in the world, and in case you’re doubting it, their first customer was Disney.

So how does it work? Scent marketing essentially boils down to leveraging the fact that our sense of smell is the most powerful of all of our senses when it comes to how emotionally connect with spaces and remember things in a company’s favor.

The bare bones:

• For the last 20 years, ScentAir has taken this idea and helped create scents for businesses like Marriott and spaces such as dental offices.
• There are over 3,000 scents in their library and they range from pleasant (Open Sky, White Tea) to repulsive (Dirty Bathroom and Rotting Garbage).
• The most popular note to work with is tea. White, green or black is often paired with aromatics like thyme or citrus.

• Their clients are household names and the most impressive is the Department of Defense, who uses the repulsive scents to help get soldiers ready for combat.
• Scents are either plugged in and dispersed directly – like a Glade Plugin – or integrated into the air conditioning.
• Most scents are flavor-grade, meaning that if they needed to be, they could be used to enhance artificial or natural flavoring in foods.

They’ve been headquartered in Charlotte for just over 10 years. Here’s what it looks like: