Targeting all the senses

From Church Marketing Sucks:

Endorphin branding. Does your church do it? Maybe I should tell you what it is first.

Per Newsweek (reporting a P.R. e-mail), endorphin branding is "the use of scent as a means of imprinting a highly emotional, positive experience in tandem with a targeted signature scent, which can be reintroduced at a later time to trigger and recreate the desired response."

Every now and then, a completely random smell will draw me in to some inexplicable happiness from my past. So here's the question to ask yourself, "Does my church have a smell? Or does my church stink so bad that its smell wouldn't trigger happy memories?"

Maybe putting a church scent in your style guide is the next step in church branding.

At first glance I thought this idea was kind of silly. I could see some churches spraying Fresh Baked Cookie Scent around to entice warm happy feelings. However, God—on more than one occasion—mentions the pleasing aroma of sacrifices. It seems to me that the idea that smell as a viable sensory input for worship is not one we should easily dismiss.

There are many traditions in Church history that utilize scent in the worship service, and I'd imagine that the mere whiff of those incenses could put those that grew up with them into a more spiritually aware state.

Thoughts?

[photo from flickr user Summer Luu]

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Comments (5)

I've brought in a bread machine to a small eucharist service and have baked the bread during the service. While you have to do the spin cycle BEFORE service, the smell of baking bread is magnificent in a smaller space. I used the scent of making people hungry for communion as a parallel to their own hunger for justice or for peace in their lives. The hunger should drive us, not the fear in the pit of our stomache.
Jeremy!: That's a great idea! Thanks for sharing.
I think when we consciously try to "create" a smell that it will stink. Smells are subtle, very below the radar. Our house, the car, your wife's hair, they all have a smell that we react to subconsciously. Plus, people that try to smell nice almost always just smell. So I think a similar thing would happen in the church: what was meant to be evocative is instead unpleasant.

This is such a great post.
As someone with allergies, I will say that this practice can backfire. A lot of smells others consider "good" are ones that make me think, "headache, watery eyes, and sneezing." Spraying anything in a church could drive off people with asthma.

On the other hand, there's one smell that always brings positive memories, even though it would certainly not be one someone would try to imitate -- the church camp I loved as a child must have used a particular brand of cleaning supplies; every time I get a whiff of it, I think of the bathrooms there and also think of all the great times I had!
I myself grew up in the Catholic Church and after having 18yrs of bad experiences, scare tactics and not really getting answers to questions about religion that were not to be explained just taught the smell of burning candles to this day repulse me and bring on a overwelming feeling of discust. I have recently switched over to a Christian Church and have never been so happy and truly satisfied.

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