Driving fragrance development to deliver emotional benefits in several markets

Brands' growing interest in wellness makes perfumery an optimal means of delivering emotional benefits to consumers, which requires skilled olfactory execution tailored to different markets. To this end, we established a combined Sensory and Consumer approach to provide olfactive guidelines: 44 perfumery accords illustrating different olfactive facets have been evaluated by 150 consumers in 11 countries, and their emotional responses, or feelings, measured using an implicit reaction time technique. These accords have also been evaluated by a trained sensory panel using a CATA descriptive procedure with 40 olfactive attributes.

The combined datasets have been processed through multi-dimensional methods (MFA and olfactive drivers) to identify sensory drivers of feelings, highlighting global trends and country-specific patterns. For example, the vanilla olfactive character was positively linked to relaxed feelings, while the mint olfactive character was negatively linked to relaxed feelings for most of the countries. However, in India, Germany, Japan and Thailand, the vanilla olfactive character was also negatively linked to relaxed feelings. Proximity between countries in terms of fragrance-feelings space has been examined, opening opportunities for brands to rationalize fragrance portfolio, especially for refresh feelings. Finally, predictive models have been produced to anticipate the emotional profile of new fragrances based on their olfactive profile, and simplify the decision-making process during development.