When one thinks of brands, one usually thinks of their appearance: the green Coca-Cola bottle, the curvy Volkswagen Bug, the deep-brown M&Ms bag.
Hotels brand themselves visually as well, and nowhere more so than in Las Vegas. But with the opening of The Signature at MGM Grand, MGM Mirage is carrying branding much further into your brain than mere sight or even sound. Here, those elements have been joined with scent to imprint the Signature brand directly on guests’ brains.
An Ylang Lemongrass scent is designed to welcome you to The Signature, which has two 576-suite hotel towers now open, and a nearly identical Tower 3 coming on-line in July.
While the MGM Grand’s heavy-duty conference center handles convention-size business, the Signature is poised for smaller, more exclusive gatherings with a board-of-directors or corporate-getaway focus. Towers 2 and 3 each have (or will have) two meeting rooms and a boardroom, and three pool areas that can accommodate groups of up to 700. The guest suites are bright, spacious and modern, and are outfitted with Sub-Zero, Miele and Bosch appliances and Anichini cotton sheets.
But back to the scents.
You arrive in The Signature’s lobby from the walkway and start inhaling Damascus 2, a scent that combines cedarwood, vanilla, lavender, orange, and other scents. Moving on to the gym, Eucalyptus Spearmint (Fitness) carries spearmint, eucalyptus and balsamic notes to your brain while your body works out on aisles of up-to-the-minute exercise machines. Relaxing later in the lounge, Volupta (cedarwood, clove, lavender, orange, etc.) wafts into your nostrils as you breathe in the gorgeous bar and poolside views.
Pleasant scents like these create powerful memory associations, so in the future, when you smell spearmint and eucalyptus, you’ll likely remember the good workout you had and want to return.
So as a planner, you might want to tell attendees about all those Signature scents, and add that tobacco is one scent they won’t encounter at the Signature—the whole property is smoke-free.
