Credit Cards are Starting to Stink – Literally

Imagine that you are standing in line behind someone waiting to make a payment for your purchase when you smell something a little bit funny. It kind of smells a little bit like coffee or maybe kind of like cinnamon. You look around to see what it is that is causing the smell. And then you realize that the smell is being emitted by the credit card of the person who is making a payment in front of you. It sounds absurd but it could be exactly what you might experience in the near future as forward-thinking credit card companies are beginning to issue credit cards that come with their own scent.

There have been a few different foreign credit card companies that have experimented with scented credit cards in the past few years. A company from Japan called JCB issued credit cards a couple of years ago that were designed for women and were appropriately scented. The scents on those credit cards are reportedly still going strong and are generally expected to linger for about three years. More recently, a German company has released a line of credit cards that have scents including coffee and cinnamon.

You might be asking what the point is of having credit cards that offer a smell. There are two major reasons that credit card companies are interested in doing something different like this:

1. Credit card companies need to be daring and different. Many consumers today are starting to realize that they shouldn’t be carrying around fifteen different credit cards. As they scale back the number of cards that they carry, they get pickier about which credit cards they apply to get. Credit card companies that want to keep getting new customers realize that they must offer something different to people to get their attention. A scented credit card is definitely something that is different.

2. This adds a new level of emotion to the credit card. Credit cards are basically “left-brained” items. They are designed around numbers and finance. There is undeniably an emotional component to spending money but you don’t experience much warmth or emotion from the plastic of the credit card itself. This is mitigated a little bit with the right-brain introduction of images on the credit card. However, it really gets altered when you add scents to the credit card.

Basically, credit card companies want to provide something different to their customers. It is believed by many that scents can be used to influence emotion and may even influence buying choices. Those customers who are interested in something different and who are not afraid to take a chance on being influenced in this way may find that the emerging option of scented credit cards is something that they will enjoy. Just keep in mind that it remains of utmost importance that you choose a credit card with good terms and benefits to you – don’t just pick one because it smells good!

This entry was posted on Monday, September 22nd, 2008 at 2:17 pm and is filed under Credit Card News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.