Fragrance Storytelling

“STORY TELLING AND SCENT ARE FUNDEMENTALLY INTERTWINED. WE CAN’T SELL THE ACTUAL SMELL ON FILM” - Sarah Rotheram, CEO, Miller Harris

however, everything else CAN be sold via film... the imagination alongside human sense are what the consumers have to bring the story to life. For example: the senses of sight, touch, hearing, sense and taste work in company with a scent to give a more immersive, personal experience.

When marketing fragrances, we tend to see more captivating and mesmerising images because obviously, you cannot capture a scent. Perfume adverts typically bring controversy or a shock factor, to pull you in and tell a story, or reignite a memory you have. For example..

Brands use storytelling as a tactic to create a feeling or a response from their consumer. Studies have proven that scent is closely linked to memory. Marketing teams have learnt to directly link the two, alongside a story, in order to sell products. They even manage to do so despite companies being unawear of what all of their consumers have experienced, or what their customers personally associate different scents to.

It doesn’t appear to matter whether the story is anything that the consumer has or hasn’t experienced because smells are biologically linked to our emotions. Therefore, it is no surprise that fragrance brands use storytelling to make sense of the link. Although perfume cannot always take the consumer back to their past (unless it’s already a familiar scent) it can pledge to try and create new memories which the customer may wish for. Because of this, brands often aim to create a new association with your experience and their fragrance. This is why a lot of research and marketing goes into portraying / selling a particular story.

“While we share accepted cultural expectations regarding various smells, in the end, we are crafted by our own experience. If Grandma burned down the house baking chocolate chip cookies, your feeling about the smell of them will be very different from mine.” - MARK CRAMES, CEO & HEADPERFUMER, DETEMER

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