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Steak-Scented Billboard Entices Drivers

Posted by samzenpus on from the steak-and-diesel dept.

In addition to car exhaust and road grime, travelers along Highway 150 in North Carolina can now enjoy the smell of a barbecue thanks to a new billboard. The work of ScentAir, which provides custom scents for businesses, the advertisement for a local grocer emits the smell of charcoal and black pepper over the highway. "Marketing director Murray Dameron said the beef scent was emitted by a high-powered fan at the bottom of the billboard that blows air over cartridges loaded with BBQ fragrance oil. 'It smells like grilled meat with a nice pepper rub on it,' he explained."

6 of 282 comments (clear)

  1. A Scentsor? by Izabael_DaJinn · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I always wondered why there can't be an electronic way to generate smells, such as how a speaker produces sounds. Is it theoretically possible to ever create a machine or device that can create a variety of scents based on some sort of scent-spectrum? Or are "cartridges loaded with BBQ fragrance oil" the best we'll ever do? (This is one of those questions I have always wondered but been afraid to ask!)

    iza

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    1. Re:A Scentsor? by Shadow+Wrought · · Score: 5, Interesting

      AFAIK, the easy part is generating the smell. The difficult part is how to move from one smell to another. Once the speakers stop, the sounds waves stop propogating almost immediately. But a smell will still be lingering. I believe they tried this with some movie houses back in the 50's (billed as Smell-O-Vision probably:-) and they just couldn't get one smell out of the theatre in time for the next one.

      I'm also pretty sure I don't want to think about how some web sites would actually use such technology for generating a profit.

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    2. Re:A Scentsor? by wjousts · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Producing a single smell (like steak) or a small number of smells is easy. Generating a system that would be flexible enough to cover a wide range of the "aroma space" is much more difficult. That aside, your point about lingering is also very true. It's pretty hard to suck the aroma back out of a space and there are problems with contamination as well (example, I was grilling over the weekend and the clothes I wore that day still smell like smoke).

    3. Re:A Scentsor? by Anachragnome · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "Generating a system that would be flexible enough to cover a wide range of the "aroma space" is much more difficult."

      Not at all. The big mall we have here in town manages numerous smells during all business hours. The clothing shops have leather scents wafting from them, the jewelry stores have rose scents and such, etc, etc. Every single store has SOME scent being pushed out the front door into the open areas of the mall. They simply have some periodic sprayer releasing canned scents into a fan duct above the doors. They've been doing it for at least the six years I've lived here.

      It is also the reason I don't do ANY business there anymore.

      I have a headache within 15 minutes of walking in the door of the mall. The problem is that they are not using actual components for smells, such as leather to produce the smell of leather, but rather some chemical composition that merely smells like leather. All of the smells are artificial and there is no regulation of the chemicals they are exposing all of the customers to. The companies that manufacture the scents are the only ones determining what is used and what isn't. Considering they do it for profit, I do not assume they are using known SAFE chemicals but rather chemicals that simply smell like what the customers want. I actually tried to find out what chemicals they use. The mall managers denied they used them at all, yet when I pointed out the clothing shop that smelled like leather but didn't sell a scrap of actual leather, I was told that the smells of the mall "mingle" and that it was probably from a different store.

  2. EIR by MightyMait · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Hmmm...I wonder if something like this requires an environmental impact report. Could those scents be toxic?

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  3. Re:Bet you didn't think of this by StuartHankins · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I was told by several women that they didn't like Drakkar, Gio, Polo, Givenchy Pi, Joop, Oscar de la Renta, Quorum, Paloma's Minotaur, and Boss. At first I thought it was just the girl but it seems some actually prefer the cheap air-freshener scents. To prefer Bath and Body works or Old Spice / Coty / CK seems very alien to me. Maybe people are losing the ability to pick up some of the varied tones in these?