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Aroma improves users' experiences and relationships with public transport services
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Friday, 1/7/2022
An attractive urban public transport system is vital to promote alternatives to private car use, thus contributing to more sustainable mobility in cities. Although transport policies focus more on improving physical characteristics, scientific evidence demonstrates that individual perceptions and motivations are equally significant attributes in attracting users. Notwithstanding, sensory signals, specifically the olfactory through ambient aroma, have been little investigated.
To fill this gap, Joaquim Silva and Elisabete Sá, EEG's professors and researchers of the Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences (CICS.NOVA.UMinho), Marco Escadas, professor at EEG, and Joana Carvalho, EEG's alumna, developed a study that explores the influence of ambient odour on the relationship between experience and perceived travel memory, attitude towards the brand, future behavioral intentions, and users' emotions.
The study was implemented in a public bus service in the municipality of Braga, with the contribution of a local organization specialized in olfactory marketing, through data collection in a pre-test-post-test experiment. In both data collection moments, results revealed that all proposed relationships were reinforced and strengthened by the presence of ambient odour. Furthermore, the ambient odour exhibited a strong influence on the relationship between emotions and positive travel memories. The outcomes also suggest that ambient scent, as a marketing tool, should be looked at more closely by public transport managers, according to the authors is considered "a much cheaper initiative that helps in the growth of passengers' intention to recommend the service, contributing to the attraction of new customers."
The authors additionally refer that "nowadays, users are looking for products and services that, besides being functional, offer them experiences and emotions. We must, consequently, value the consumer experience in a more transversal manner and as comprehensively as possible, integrating sensory aspects, most of the time unconscious, which influence the perception of service quality. Ambient odour is a distinctive factor that captures the consumer's attention, creates positive and memorable experiences and generates attitudes, behavioural intentions, and relationships favourable to corporations, and may constitute a competitive advantage that companies and brands seek so much in hyper-competitive markets".
The article can be found at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2021.03.022
Gabinete de Comunicação
Escola de Economia e Gestão
Universidade do Minho
Telefone: 253 604541
Email:
gci@eeg.uminho.pt
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