Sure, the techniques that brands use to advertise themselves have reached Minority Report levels of dystopian profiling and intrusiveness. But are they intrusive enough? Aren't there any more of your senses that advertisers can exploit for their own nefarious ends?

Oh I know: smell. You just don't come across a lot of ads these days that you can smell. Sure, brands can bombard you with TV ads and online ads and video ads and print ads and billboards and endorsements and sponsorships and direct mailing and product placement. But what do those brands smell like? You don't know. And that's the tragedy.

Fortunately, Ad Age reports, "scent marketing" is the popular new frontier in How America Slowly Loses Its Mind In The Name of Prosperity. You love walking into a casino or teen-centric clothing store and being unwillingly enveloped in a fine mist of cheap cologne—why not replicate that experience everywhere?

As brands continue to search for innovative ways to distinguish themselves, scent marketing is becoming another tool in their arsenals. "We're where music was 15 years ago," said Roger Bensinger, exec VP of AirQ by Prolitec, which works with Abercrombie & Fitch, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino and Giorgio Armani, among others. "You wouldn't walk into an established retailer today without some sort of music playing, but that wasn't the case 15 or 20 years ago. You can walk into a beautifully designed space, and it's rendered meaningless if there's a bad smell or an absent smell."

The Parthenon is meaningless... no smell.

[Photo: Flickr]