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What does a Michigan vacation smell like? According to Pure Michigan, which promotes tourism in the state, the answer is beachy and fresh. They've bottled it into a new fragrance. Colin Jackson of Michigan Public Radio Network went out and asked people what they made of the scent.
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COLIN JACKSON, BYLINE: I went to where people relax - the Detroit riverfront along the edge of downtown - and asked them to check out the state's new summer scented fragrance called Fresh. The state gave me a few samples. Here's what Jazz Calvin thought.
JAZZ CALVIN: Ooh, it's a very refreshing smell. Almost like it puts you in the field of, like, spring coming in the summer. I like it.
JACKSON: I went to go see the creator of the fragrance at her store in Kalamazoo, Tanya Thompson. She says it's inspired by aromas from Michigan features - coastline, flowers and vineyards.
TANYA THOMPSON: We have a lot of lavender. When you get an opportunity to go to the beach, there's a lot of wineries offered.
JACKSON: Thompson runs The Aroma Labs, a chain of stores where people can build custom fragrances or buy bottles of the summer scent.
THOMPSON: Scent, in a very sophisticated way, impacts your prefrontal cortex. There's actually an olfactory bulb in there - mood, memory, emotion.
JACKSON: Michigan's tourism campaign called Pure Michigan got Thompson to develop fragrances for each season in hopes of pushing that brain button and getting people to think about the state. The sprays sell for $32 online. They started with summer.
KELLY WOLGAMOTT: We really wanted it to replicate the air of a freshwater coastline, being on a summer beach day, being in the wineries.
JACKSON: That's Pure Michigan Vice President Kelly Wolgamott.
WOLGAMOTT: Just that fresh feeling that you have when you travel in Pure Michigan in the summer.
JACKSON: Wolgamott says the tourism office turned the scent into a scratch-and-sniff and published it in various travel magazines.
WOLGAMOTT: And that just really provided us, from a marketing standpoint, to showcase Michigan in a different way in a print publication versus just a static print ad. We have this now interactive piece within.
JACKSON: Pure Michigan said it didn't have a specific cost for the fragrance partnership, but it was part of $14 million in state and other money for promoting the state this season. It has tried many things to bring in tourists over the years, like scented candles. They also flooded the airwaves with sometimes parodied ads featuring voiceovers from actor Tim Allen.
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TIM ALLEN: The perfect summer has a voice. If we listen close enough, we can hear it.
JACKSON: The tourism office is suggesting travel spots to go along with the scents. The beach on Belle Isle, an island in the river between Detroit and Canada, was among them.
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JACKSON: There on a sunny evening, with kids chasing seagulls and the haze of Canadian wildfires blurring the skyline, there was a little skepticism at first, like, from beachgoer Joanne Adams.
JOANNE ADAMS: Total cynic. I don't see how a scent is going to bring anybody that doesn't want to come anyway.
JACKSON: But when I showed it to others, they thought it matched the vibe. Sunrazalay DeSano and Evelina Ameyaw were laying in the sun when they tried it out.
SUNRAZALAY DESANO: I wouldn't say it smells expensive, but it smells welcoming, if that makes sense.
EVELINA AMEYAW: That, too. And it's - it is very welcoming.
DESANO: It smells more like, hey, come on, be around here. But it's not so, like, boisterous.
JACKSON: In the shade with her book, Lakeia Smith liked it, too.
LAKEIA SMITH: I say this smells better than the Michigan smell (laughter). If we can get Michigan to smell like this, that'll be beautiful.
JACKSON: Nearby, Jessica Hamilton was visiting from New York. She supported the idea of using the fragrance to attract tourism.
JESSICA HAMILTON: I would definitely want to be there, wherever that is, because it's very clean and refreshing.
JACKSON: The state plans on a new scent for the fall called Harvest and one for winter called First Snow.
For NPR News, I'm Colin Jackson on Detroit's Belle Isle.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE WHITEST BOY ALIVE SONG, "GOLDEN CAGE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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