Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
Bath & Body Works' campaign with the MTA makes scents. (MTA)
Anyone who’s ridden the New York Subway knows that at any given moment, it’s a sensory overload. Between the 3.4 million people that ride it daily, random buskers playing music (sometimes with Jimmy Fallon, terrifyingly), and vendors selling everything from churros to nuts, you’re almost never bored once you head underground.
Of all the senses being assaulted, however, what you’ll smell on any given day is sometimes a literal crapshoot. It can range from, at best, “this doesn’t smell completely terrible” to “how did the odor of hot garbage and feet combined get down here?” If you make your way to the Grand Central Station by the end of the month, however, you’ll be smelling something actually pleasant, and it’s all due to advertising.
Bath & Body Works has cut a deal with the MTA that will make the 42nd Street Shuttle platform smell like fresh pine and vanilla, a nice change from the vagrant urine it usually smells like. The retail giant has installed diffusers attached to a steel girder that will disperse 20 to 30 pounds of the scent by the end of the month. Apparently, it’s subtle enough that if you’re in a hurry trying to get that 7 train, you might not even notice it, but there is a poster proclaiming that the temporary not-gross smell is courtesy of Bath & Body Works.
The subway cars themselves will still smell like subways. (MTA)
The Chief Marketing Officer for B&BW states that the company chose “Fresh Balsam” to be the scent of the campaign as it’s one of their most popular scents, and is also for the holidays. It won out over some of their less popular fragrances that would be less distinguishable from the norm, like “packed train body odor” and “a rat might have died here a while ago.”
The MTA didn’t go into this blind, however. Last year, they did a pilot program at some stations in Queens and Brooklyn to make sure it wasn’t overwhelming. It’s not mentioned which fragrances they’d used for those, but there have been no complaints about the 2024 testing or this current campaign yet.
With this first-of-its-kind campaign seemingly having worked, look for more intentional smells to come to a subway station near you as the MTA celebrates a new revenue stream. Maybe pumped-in coffee will remind you to get your Dunkin fix. Or you could smell a Whopper, perhaps, as Burger King pipes in the smell of hamburgers while vegan commuters turn back in horror. Or Red Lobster could pump in some flounder. Or maybe Subway (the sandwich company) can partner with subway (the subway) to pump in the smell of their bread, which everyone within half a block of a store can already smell.
Realistically, it’ll probably be something from Yankee Candle or a chocolate company, but either way, the days of your nasal cavities being punished by smells in the subway aren’t going anywhere, but the odor might be vastly improved.
This story is based on fully factual news, but if we got it wrong, blame these guys, we’re just here to make it funny.
