Out of this world?

At the risk of being self-aggrandizing, I’ve got to put this in here. A while ago, I spoke with a Texas reporter about a company that claims to have developed a system to add pheromones to ventilation systems in stores and casinos. These pheromones would, allegedly, cause people to spent/gamble more. From the Galveston County Daily News:

Enhanced Air’s Director of Development Nigel Malkin said the company’s product, Commercaire, makes consumers feel comfortable and secure so they shop longer and spend more.

Ethicists at the University of Texas Medical Branch and the University of Houston Clear Lake said the practice is offensive if consumers aren’t told the system is in use, and one of the country’s leading experts in pheromone research questioned the validity of the company’s scientific claims.

But Enhanced Air promises big sales boosts and spiking customer loyalty. The compound doesn’t cause consumers to get into a spending frenzy so much as it causes them to feel more at ease in an environment and more receptive to sales messages, said Malkin.

Malkin claimed that he originally developed the product for “a Las Vegas casino,” and the reporter asked me about this possibility. I was predictably quite skeptical, pointing out that casinos go to great lengths to keep air clean. But I couldn’t stop there–I had to go for broke:

Manipulating gamblers’ behavior surreptitiously would pose too great a risk for a public relations nightmare, Schwartz said.

Something like that would seem so boldly predatory it would raise that issue, do you want to take all their money?” he said.

“Schwartz also contends that rumors of casinos pumping oxygen through the vents to keep players awake at night is nothing more than urban legend. He said the idea that a casino would infuse a ventilation system with a chemical, even an organic one, was hard to believe.

“They work pretty hard to try to keep the air as clean as possible,” Schwartz said. “But who knows, there could be a giant alien base under the Strip.”
Company claims pheromones boost retail sales

That’s right, a “casino expert” finally said in print what many had suspected for years–that the real alien presence in Las Vegas is not out at Area 51, but in a subterranean base underneath the Strip. I’ve always said that if I didn’t have fun at my job, I wouldn’t do it, and here’s proof. I obviously didn’t literally mean that I thought aliens were at work, but it’s just as ridiculous as other stories I hear.

Anyway, it’s all in a day’s work.
__________________________________________