As if we can stand any more stimuli in our day to day lives, the latest frontier in branding is gaining steam, sometimes, quite literally. Here’s an in-depth article on some of the major players and trends in scent marketing. Luckily for our noses, retailers and specialized olfactory marketers alike are realizing that less is more when it comes to tickling our noses. Long gone are the days of power blasting customer nostrils with muscular perfume from Ambercrombie or the Cinnabon smell of sin that permeates American malls in search of another diet to wreck. It’s not just clothing, cars, and food anymore. Airports and airlines, banks and hotels, even gyms have jumped on the opportunity to reach clients in their most emotionally sensitive sense to keep us coming back for more.
Tag Archives: scent design
continuing education
Photo courtesy of Odette Toilette
Noses in the Big Smoke are lucky to have Odette Toilette, the founder of a thriving olfactory event scene in London. Her scratch + sniff nights provide rich olfactive adventure and education.
Californians can take a more institutional yet no less exciting approach to olfactive training at one of perfumer and wine consultant Alexandre Schmitt‘s seminars as he travels wine country across the state.
As the latest smell research shows, participating in scent events like these trains your brain and nose to smell a wider range and greater nuances in smells.
san francisco smells
SPUR and the California College of the Arts have designed “Urban Olfactory,” an immersive exhibit to transport you to special spaces and places in history. Some of the more daring and disturbing concoctions are urban pollution in San Francisco and a putrefaction from distant Paris. While not all of the scents are offensive, however, the exhibit as a whole is not for the faint of heart. If you can’t get there, read more about it in this SF Weekly article.
Urban Olfactory is free and open to the public
January 30, 2014 to March 31, 2014
SPUR Urban Center Gallery
654 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA
watchful scents
Most people buy watches for their flashy metal and leather or for following minutes and hours. And most people buy fragrances to suit an outfit or their persona.
Designer Aisen Caro Chacin brings us one step closer to a New Age-y Jetsons world with “Scent Rhythm,” a watch that tracks time alongside circadian rhythms.
Every 6 hours or so, a scent is emitted to induce waking, activity, resting or sleep according to the time of day and the body’s needs at that time.
iconic fragrances
If you find yourself in the Los Angeles area, check out the exhibit “Timeless Scents,” curated by Chandler Burr. The exhibit celebrates a range of famous fragrances from the 14th to today. The interactive exhibit aims to engage your senses while taking you deeper into the annals of perfume history through the stories behind the scents.
“Timeless Scents” is free to the public now till December 22nd
Lovelace Studio Theater at The Wallis
9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd. (310) 746-4000
12 – 8p Tuesday – Saturday
12 – 7 p Sundays
closed Monday
time in a bottle
German perfumer Kim Weisswange has delivered on the age-old longing to bottle time. Her recent scent calendar proposes to capture each day in a different scent based on the mixture of scents that represent a specific month and day to make unique accords for all 365 days of the year.
olfactory architecture
Don’t miss the California College of Arts scent event, Olfactory Archive: 1738 – 1969, an exhibit devoted to scent art in architectural history curated by David Gissen and Irene Cheng. The opening reception will be held this Friday, October 11 at 7pm. The event and exhibits are free and open to the public. Artists represented include Aaron Betsky, Herzog and DeMeuron and Christophe Laudemiel.
Here’s look at the exhibit up close: Olfactory Archive
Olfactory Archive runs October 8 – 13, 2013
Nave
1111 Eighth Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
415.703.9500
Olfactive 