The role of senses on purchasing behavior: A field research on odor marketing

The development of its marketing and marketing world day by day has increased the importance of the concepts of consumption and consumption equally. The concept of consumption is briefly the process of purchasing, using and disposing of a product or service. Consumer, on the other hand, derives from the verb of consuming and takes the leading role in the consumption process, today all living things must consume in order to exist. All these processes are called 'consumer (purchase) behavior', it is consumer behavior that consumers select, sell, buy and use the product or service first to meet all their needs and evaluate it after use. This concept is especially important for the marketing field. Of course, this consumption process emerges as a result of individuals' personal needs, motives and attitudes. With its consumer behavior, it also helps to find answers to questions such as who the consumers in a particular market are, what, when they bought, why and where they bought, how much and how often they bought the products they bought. The purchasing process first comes up with a need of the consumer, the consumer whose need arises first scans the options to buy a product, evaluates the options it finds and performs the purchase, provides the consumer feedback that evaluates the product or service it uses, and provides the purchasing process. terminates. When consumers purchase a product or service, demographic factors (age, gender, marital status, education level, occupation, geographical area) are psychological factors (motivation, perception, learning, beliefs and attitudes, personality), socio-cultural factors (family, social class, reference groups, culture) are known to be affected. If we look at the concept of sensory marketing, it is necessary to define the concept of sensation first. Individuals perceive their life and environment with their sense organs. The concept of sense is defined as receiving warnings. We have five senses: seeing, smelling, tasting, hearing and touching. These senses are used systematically by marketers and consumers are attracted through the senses. As a result of the use of senses in marketing, the concept of "sensory marketing" emerged as a discipline. Sensory marketing is to influence the perception process, emotions, feelings and behaviors of consumers through senses in order to create awareness. Types (components) of sensory marketing are visual marketing, audio marketing, tastical marketing, fragrance marketing, tactile marketing. "Fragrant marketing", which is one of the sensory marketing types, has been the research subject of this thesis. Because fragrance has important benefits for marketing. Fragrance can become the most important feature of the products, ensures the recall of the product and the brand, informs about the performance of the product, positively affects the buying behavior, increases the duration of stay in the store, has an effect on the emotions of its consumers, can change the mood, smells have a stimulating effect. No research was found to determine the effect of the sense of smell on the purchasing behavior of consumers, and smell marketing is the aim of this study. In the first part of the study, the subject of consumer and consumer behavior, in the second part of the study, the concept of sensory marketing (sensory branding) and in the third part of the study, the concept of fragrance marketing was mentioned. Accordingly, focus groups interview was held with 8 people aged 18-25, 8 people aged 24-33 and 8 people aged 34-41, living in Izmir / Karsiyaka district, with a total of 24 people (12 Women-12 Men). The word frequency analysis technique of the content analysis method used in qualitative studies was used to evaluate the data. Keywords: Consumption, Consumer, Consumer Behavior, Sensory Marketing, Odor Marketing