Discuss and describe how smell, or olfactory communication, is important in many situations and has become big business

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: The ideal answer should include:
1. Because humans possess so many scent glands, it has been argued that it only remains for us to discover how we use scent to communicate a wide variety of messages. Two particularly important messages that smell communicates are attraction messages and identification messages.
2. Attraction messages: People use perfumes, colognes, aftershave lotions, powders, and the like in an effort to enhance attractiveness. You also use scents to make yourself feel better. When you smell pleasant, you feel better about yourself; when you smell unpleasant, you feel less good about yourself—and probably shower and perhaps put on cologne or other scented beauty product.
3. Identification messages: Smell can be used to create an image or an identity for a product. Advertisers and manufacturers spend millions of dollars each year creating scents for cleaning products and toothpastes, for example, which have nothing to do with the products' cleaning power; instead, they function solely to create an image for the products.