[*] For many years large supermarkets have been encouraging us to spend money by pumping the smell of freshly-baked bread into their store. Now Dale Air, a leading firm of aroma consultants, has been approached by Barclay’s Bank to develop suitable artificial smells for their banks. Researchers have suggested that surrounding customers with the ’ smell of money’ will encourage them to relax and feel optimistic and confident about a bank’s security and professionalism. However, before a smell can be manufactured and disseminated through air conditioning systems into banks, it must be identified and chemically analysed, and this has proved to be difficult. The problem is that banknotes and coins tend to pick up the smell of their surroundings, so cash that has been sitting in a cash register at a fishmonger’s will smell of fish, and banknotes used to pay for meals in restaurants will tend to smell of other types of food. It may be a challenge, but aroma experts have little doubt that the use of an artificial smell of money will be an effective form of subconscious advertising. Lunn Poly, a British travel company, introduced the smell of coconuts into its travel agencies and saw a big increase in spending by holiday makers.(74)Many cafes now have machines that release the smell of freshly roasted coffee near their entrances, subtly encouraging customers to come in and have a drink or snack. Even prestige car maker Rolls-Royce sprays the inside of its cars to enhance the smell of the leather seats. ’ The sense of smell is probably the most basic and primitive of all human senses,’ explains researcher Jim O’reiordan. ’ There is a direct pathway from the olfactory organs in the nose to the brain. ’(75)It is certainly true that most people find certain smells incredibly evocative, and that these smells stir up memories and feelings in a way that few other stimulants can rival. It is a phenomenon marketing consultants have long recognized, but until recently have been unable to harness. ’ We’ve made great progress but the technology of odour production is still in its infancy,’ says O’reiordan.

[*] In many businesses, computers have largely replaced paperwork, because they are fast, flexible, and do not make mistakes. As one banker said, “ Unlike humans, computers never have a bad day. “ Also, they are honest. Many banks advertise that their transactions are “ untouched by human hands“ and therefore safe from human temptation. Obviously, computers have no reason to steal money, but they also have no conscience, and the growing number of computer crimes shows they can be used to steal. Computer criminals don’t use guns, and even if they are caught, it is hard to punish them because there are no witnesses and often no evidence. A computer cannot remember who used it: it simply does what it is told. The head teller at a New York bank used a computer to steal more than one and a half billion dollars in just four years. No one noticed this theft because he moved the money from one account to another. Each time a customer he had robbed questioned the balance in his account, the teller claimed a computer error, then replaced the missing money from someone else’s account. This man was caught only because he was a gambler. When the police broke up an illegal gambling operation, his name was in the records. Some employees use the computer’s power to get revenge on employers they consider unfair. Recently, a large insurance company fired its computer-tape librarian for reasons that involved her personal, rather than her professional, life. She was given thirty days notice. In those thirty days, she erased all the firm’s computerized records. Most computer criminals are minor employees. Now police wonder if this is “ the tip of the iceberg“. As one official says, “I have the feeling that there is more crime out there than we are catching. What we are seeing now is all so poorly done. I wonder what the real experts are doing— the ones who know how computers really work. “

Many doctors know the story of ’ Mr Wright’. In 1957 he was diagnosed with cancer, and given only days to live. He had tumours the size of oranges. He heard that scientists had discovered a new medication, Krebiozen, which was effective against cancer, and he begged his doctor to give him the drug. His physician, Dr Philip West, finally agreed. Mr Wright was given an injection on a Friday afternoon, the astonished doctor found his patient out of his ‘death bed’ , joking with the nurses the following Monday. ’The tumours, ‘the doctor wrote later, ’ had melted like snow balls on a hot stove. ’ Actually, Mr Wright had not been given a drug, just a mix of salt and water. [*] This story has been ignored by doctors for a long time, dismissed as one of those strange tales that medicine cannot explain. The idea that what a patient believes can make a fatal disease go a-way is regarded as just too strange. However, now scientists are discovering that placebo effect is more powerful than anyone had ever thought. They are also beginning to discover how such miraculous results are achieved.【44】Through new techniques in brain imagery it has been shown that a thought, a belief or a desire can cause chemical processes in the brain which can have powerful effects on the body. Placebos are ’ lies that heal’ , said Dr Anne Harrington, a science historian at Harvard University. ’ The word placebo is Latin for “I shall please“ or “I shall, make you happy“ and it is typically a treatment that a doctor gives to anxious patients to please them, ’she said. ’ It looks like medication, but has no healing ingredients whatsoever. ’ Nowadays, doctors have much more effective medicines to fight disease, but these treatments have not diminished the power of the placebo— quite the opposite.【45】Maybe when scientists fully understand how they work, the powerful heating effects of the human mind will be used more systematically.

Dale Air has produced an artificial ’smell of money’ for Barclay’s Bank.

It is difficult to identify the smell of real money.

Shoppers are aware of the effect smells have on their spending.