Consumers were already snapping up aromatherapy products like scented sleeping masks, candles, oil diffusers, and scented jewelry even before we all found ourselves housebound.
Scent can have a powerful effect on our mood and sense of well-being – a connection that helped drive the home fragrance market to $6.7 billion in 2018. And who couldn’t use a bit of aromatherapy these days to lift our spirits as we “shelter in place”?
Aromatherapy has been around for centuries, as Harpreet Gujral, program director of integrative medicine at Sibley Memorial Hospital explains on the Johns Hopkins Medicine website.
“When inhaled, the scent molecules travel from the olfactory nerves directly to the brain and especially impact the amygdala, the emotional center of the brain,” Gujral says.
While studies are mixed on the medical benefits, many people report calming and mood-boosting effects from aromatherapy scents.
“Even if they just boost your mood, they can make a positive impact on your well-being,” Gujral says.
Greeting Cards that Put the Scent into Sentiment
That nose to brain connection is why scent is such a powerful marketing tool. It doesn’t just sell candles – it sells just about anything, with the ability to trigger a wide array of emotional connections, memories and feelings.
For the greeting card industry, incorporating aromatherapy not only taps into the obsession for all things scented, it has a way of making a card stand out on the shelf to begin with. Who could resist a lavender-covered Get Well card that carries the actual scent of lavender, which is associated with stress-relieving and anti-inflammatory properties?
Depending on the sentiment, your options could also include:
- The mood-lifting appeal of a lemon-scented greeting
- An energizing whiff of peppermint
- The calming scent of mandarin
- The memory-inspiring scent of campfire, a seaside or freshly-cut grass
- Idea-provoking scents like money
- Appetite stimulating scents like french fries, pizza or popcorn
H&H Custom Scents: It’s Not all Roses Around Here
In addition to greeting cards, scented printing can be used on gift cards, credit cards, labels, packaging, book covers, and retail and POP displays and promotions. We’ve printed a jasmine-scented mailer for a company that wanted to reinforce its message about taking the stress out of payroll. We helped a raspberry flavored vodka brand jump-start tastebuds and imaginations with raspberry scented recipe cards.The possibilities, as you can see, are limited only by what you can smell.
At H&H Graphics, we’ve got aromatherapy and then some, with more than 100 stock scents and an R&D Department that can create whatever you can dream up. We’re not kidding. We’re working on a reality television series promotion that has our entire plant currently smelling like – manure. Yikes! But on the nose…
For even greater results, combine scents with other special effects like texture, glitter or chromic inks that react with light, water or heat to create a multisensory campaign that can’t miss.
Give us a call or click on the link below to learn more.
