Claims such as “100% natural” or “no added sugar” on beverage packaging create expectations about taste and healthiness. Could the impression change if a matching odor accompanies the label?
A study published by Schicker and colleagues in 2025 paired mango and chocolate beverage labels with their corresponding odors and examined people’s ratings and brain responses. Rather than focusing only on how words alter odor perception, it considered the reverse direction: how odors change perceptions of products and their labels.
- Combining two beverages with five label statements
- The same people view labels with and without odors
- Products were liked more when an odor was present
- Expected healthiness showed a different result
- What differences appeared in the brain?
- A pleasant odor’s impression may have transferred to the product
- Results may differ in shops or for other products
- Conclusion
- References
Combining two beverages with five label statements
The researchers used images of mango and chocolate beverage labels. For each, they prepared a version without a special statement and versions with German wording corresponding to “100% natural,” “no artificial ingredients,” “only natural sugars,” and “no added sugar.”
This was not a comparison of the actual nutritional composition of beverages. Nor did it assume that products labeled “natural” are healthy. It investigated how people respond to such wording.
The ten label conditions were each presented with either an odor matching the beverage or an odorless solvent control, making 20 conditions altogether. The study did not include incongruent odors.
The same people view labels with and without odors
The functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, analysis included 63 participants. Product-rating analyses used data from 60, excluding three who reported misunderstanding the task. Participants were aged 22–67, spoke fluent German, and met eligibility criteria including a specified olfactory test.
During scanning, participants inhaled on cue while viewing label images. Conditions were repeatedly presented in a controlled order. After functional scanning, each condition was presented again, and participants rated odor intensity and pleasantness, product liking, willingness to buy, and expected healthiness on scales from 0 to 10.
Participants did not actually drink the beverages or pay to buy them. The study measured expectations arising from labels and odors, and purchase intentions expressed at that moment.
Products were liked more when an odor was present
Overall, matching odors increased product-liking and willingness-to-buy ratings. The increase was greater for chocolate than mango. The authors suggest that the greater pleasantness of the chocolate odor itself may have contributed.
Label statements also made a difference. Product liking was higher for “100% natural” than for no statement or “no artificial ingredients.” Willingness to buy was higher for “100% natural” and “no added sugar” than for no statement.
There was also statistical evidence that the odor effect on product liking differed by statement. The increases associated with odor were greater for “100% natural” and “no added sugar” than for “no artificial ingredients.”
It would therefore be inaccurate to say that words played no role and odor uniformly improved impressions. Equally, the findings alone do not show that odor counteracted the negative phrasing of “no.” The statements also differed in meaning, familiarity, and other respects.
Expected healthiness showed a different result
Expected healthiness was higher for mango than chocolate beverages, and “100% natural” received the highest ratings among statements. However, the overall effect of odor on expected healthiness did not meet the criterion for statistical significance.
The reported p-value was 0.055. The effects seen for liking and willingness to buy cannot simply be extended to healthiness ratings. None of these ratings, of course, measured the beverages’ actual health effects.
What differences appeared in the brain?
fMRI investigates brain responses using changes in blood oxygenation associated with neural activity. Odor conditions increased activity in areas involved in olfactory processing, including the piriform cortex, amygdala, and orbitofrontal cortex. Differences in label images and statements also appeared in areas involved in vision, among others.
However, the whole-brain analysis did not find a significant interaction showing that odor effects varied by statement. An interaction in product-liking ratings is not the same as finding a corresponding interaction in brain images.
The researchers compared not only the overall magnitude of activity in a region but also its distribution across smaller areas. Even if total activity is similar, the combination of responding locations can differ. They compared similarities in these patterns with similarities in odor presence and product ratings.
Activity patterns in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, left ventral striatum, and a region including the right amygdala and piriform cortex differed according to whether an odor was present. These include regions involved in sensory processing and value judgments.
However, after accounting for odor presence, this pattern analysis did not find significant evidence that brain patterns represented differences in ratings such as product liking or willingness to buy. Associations between individual regions and ratings were also examined, but the study did not establish a straightforward chain explaining how odor-related brain changes increased product ratings.
A pleasant odor’s impression may have transferred to the product
The authors propose that participants may have attributed the odor’s pleasantness to the label or product they were viewing. They also suggest that odor might make the experience of drinking easier to imagine, reducing uncertainty or concern about disappointment.
Both are possible explanations of the findings. The study did not independently manipulate and test either the transfer of odor pleasantness to the product or a reduction in purchase-related uncertainty. Investigating connections and information flow between brain regions is also a future task.
The statements used here mainly conveyed positive features or were neutral. Whether odors can compensate for labels that strongly evoke negative expectations, such as “healthy but probably not tasty,” remains to be tested.
Results may differ in shops or for other products
The study covered two beverages and a limited set of German statements. Actual purchases also depend on price, individual preferences, hunger, and context. These ratings do not establish effects on retail sales, consumption, or improvements in diet.
One author disclosed having subsequently joined the fragrance-related company dsm-firmenich. The paper states that the company was not involved in the study or interpretation of the findings.
Conclusion
Adding a matching beverage odor increased product liking and willingness to buy based on the label. The effect on expected healthiness and the detailed mechanisms combining odors and statements in the brain were not established in the same way.
The study shows that labels are not processed solely as visual information: they are experienced alongside accompanying odors. It highlights the importance of considering combinations of senses, not just words, when communicating through labels, while identifying mechanisms that still need investigation.
References
Schicker, D., Khorisantono, P. A., Rramani Dervishi, Q., Lim, S. X. L., Saruco, E., Pleger, B., Schultz, J., Ohla, K., & Freiherr, J. (2025). Smell the Label: Odors Influence Label Perception and Their Neural Processing. Journal of Neuroscience, 45(14), e1159242024. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1159-24.2024 / Full text. Original article: Copyright © 2025 the authors, SfN exclusive license.
