Food & Fun > Tastes

Masters of our noses. A shared olfactory code does exist

The customer refuses any influence and chooses foods, seasonings and drinks in full autonomy. So, why investing money in the quality and leaving the customer the pleasure to use his nose?

by Monica Sommacampagna

Does a shared olfactory code, able to represent a reference point to evaluate the quality of a drink or a food, exists? After years dominated by the pressure of food brands, now the customer is taking back his uniqueness and refuses the fashion dictates.

Such as an elf that takes pleasure from avoiding the market researches, he chooses according to his lifestyle and he loves to try new things. Hence, consciously or not, he loves to be original in his choices. So, welcome in the era of subjectivity and of the personalization of marketing.

The trend to take pleasure from testing new products and to choose in a very personal way is present in the way of perceiving smells, as well. This is a very intimate thing, since it is strongly connected to every costumer’s own memory and can bring very different emotions, such as pleasure, nuisances or hidden feelings. As a matter of fact, this is a strong link between the costumers’ past and present and it is what gives colors to one’s life.



Hence, if it’s true that:
1) a shared olfactory code that allows, e.g., to distinguish in a wine or an oil subtle fruity or grassy scents exists,

2) it is possible to educate the nose improving its perceptive abilities and, finally, that

3) we are all pushed by the media to improve our sensorial sensitivity, mainly to tempt us to gluttony shopping, it is also true that some variables escape to this didactic and coarse logic.

As a matter of fact, the aspects that escape such a logic make the sensorial experience more exciting and complex. Such aspects, that the customer, usually unconsciously, links to memoirs and feelings, induce the buyer to fall in love with a product, to sponsor it, or to consider it as one among the others. According to this logic, the customer takes pleasure from connoting a tasting with his own sensorial and emotive descriptors. Both during a chocolate tasting or while comparing different scents in a perfumery, the independent customer refuses trivial definitions, clichés, general marketing campaigns and affected images, in order to preserve his olfactory uniqueness. Hence, in the case of wine, customers can be inclined to be influenced by a sommelier that, in a red wine, senses the fragrance of fruits of the forest, since this is a common olfactory notion, but strongly refuses images such as the “wet coat of a fox” which derive from an unknown, and subjective, olfactory sensitivity.



As a matter of fact, leaving the customers to be masters of their noses means to leave them to be masters of their opinions. This is a very intriguing opportunity for all that companies that invest money in the quality of products and that see, for example, the complexity and variability of personal experiences as an interesting universe where everybody can project his own lifestyle and his own past, present and future. Investing in quality, in tailor-made products, to develop new dimensions that can be charged by subjective projections is an exciting challenge that can be won. The primary requirement for this is complexity, i.e., both a preliminary investment to improve the overall quality and a final excellent result.

An outstanding fragrance conveys a symphony of sensations: the finny initial notes of a scent develop in robust fragrances that give space to the final sensations that remain fixed on the skin as a golden voile. The most valuable perfumes are the one that exalt the aura of the one that uses them and that classy and discretely exalt the individual smell.

So, why investing money in the quality and leaving the customer the pleasure to use his nose, and to express some subjective proclivities? Because the scent of an intriguing experience can side someone in a particular moment of his life; moreover, because whenever the emotive link works properly, a scent can follow the customer in different stages of his life and enter his precious individual memory

by Monica Sommacampagna
07 December 2009 Teatro Naturale International n. 11 Year 1

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