Upon entering the large glass doors of ONYX Automotive, a fresh, floral scent immediately greets anyone who walks in. The scent was designed with the help of ScentAir, a custom scent company, to create an atmosphere that feels welcoming, luxurious, and truly represents what ONYX stands for.
Why Scent Matters in Branding
ScentAir creates custom fragrances for brands to strategically shape customer experience and strengthen brand identity. ScentAir also creates fragrances for personal use, offering professional-quality home fragrances for everyday living spaces.
The use of scent as a branding tool has become increasingly common among businesses seeking to create memorable customer experiences. Research has shown that smell is closely tied to memory and emotion, making fragrance a powerful way for companies to strengthen connections with clients.
Businesses like hotels, luxury retailers, casinos, and automotive dealerships often use signature scents to help distinguish themselves from competitors. When customers repeatedly encounter the same fragrance, they may begin to associate that scent with a particular brand — making it easier to remember long after leaving the business.
“If you’ve ever walked into a hotel, resort, or retail store and thought, ‘It smells amazing in here,’ there’s a good chance that it was ScentAir,” said Michelle Anna Alfano, marketing content manager for ScentAir.
For client-facing companies like ONYX, a custom scent offers another way to shape a client’s first impression and reinforce the atmosphere they want visitors to experience.
How ONYX Found Its Signature Scent
“Creating a custom signature scent with ScentAir begins with a comprehensive brand immersion, where fragrance experts explore every nuance of a brand’s identity, from visual style and marketing materials to the ambiance of physical spaces,” Alfano said.
From those insights, the ScentAir team selects top, middle, and base notes to create a fragrance that captures the brand’s essence.
Businesses can also opt to choose from ScentAir’s extensive curated fragrance library as an alternative — and that’s the route ONYX decided to take. ScentAir brought 16 different notes to ONYX, each with a distinct scent and purpose for creating a different atmosphere. ONYX was thorough in its search, evaluating each option to find something that felt uniquely them, balancing freshness and sophistication.
Tom Coleman, marketing director for ONYX, described the scent as fresh and flowery, like a bouquet of flowers or a garden — while emphasizing that it’s never overpowering.
“It’s completely organic, non-toxic, and allergy-free. So for those who are sensitive to smell, it isn’t too strong. It shouldn’t negatively affect anyone who enters the building.”
— Tom Coleman
A Professional Decision, Built for Clients
The decision to create a custom scent was intentional.
“Creating a custom scent was a professional decision that we made to improve the ONYX brand and to curate a better experience for our clients.”
— Tom Coleman
The fragrance has been part of the ONYX experience since the dealership opened its doors in 2019, associated with the brand for clients and employees alike ever since. The building stays fresh through an advanced ventilation system.
“There’s a distribution system that pushes the scent through the air vents every couple of hours,” Coleman said — an easy way to infuse the building throughout the day and keep the scent from becoming stale.
More Than Just a Pleasant Smell
The custom fragrance at ONYX is more than a nice detail — it’s part of the dealership’s luxury identity, helping create a memorable experience from the moment clients walk through the door.
Every aspect of ONYX is designed to create an elevated experience, from the presentation of vehicles to the lounge and service areas. Along with attention to detail in its vehicles and customer service, ONYX has also invested in its atmosphere and environment. While visitors may not immediately identify the scent, there’s no doubt they notice the atmosphere it helps create.
Through its partnership with ScentAir, ONYX clients now leave with not only a positive impression of the business, but also a familiar floral scent that can’t be found anywhere else.
Visit onyxautomotive.com for more information.
