Imagining Scents: Language, Marketing and Aesthetics

imagine.. presents seminar:

Imagining Scents: Language, Marketing and Aesthetics

By Brian Moeran, Professor, CBS    

Friday March 3, 12.00-13.30

CBS - Kilen - Kilevej 14A, Lecture Hall KS.71

How are fragrances used in consumer products, and how might they be used? The presentation tries to answer this question by looking at product types, together with the benefits and attributes that may be derived from the use of fragrances of one sort or another. Is scent marketing a viable extension of the branding process? Or does it pose more problems than it resolves? How do we talk about and visualise smells in our everyday lives? During the presentation, the audience will be asked to participate in one or two experiments, in order to “see” whether we share a language of fragrance and whether it is possible to define a targeted “scent community,” in the same way as is done in visual marketing. Is there such a thing as a “scent community,” or does scent marketing operate in an anarchy of olfactory “tastes”? What methods can we use to improve our understanding of how people (fail to) appreciate smell in their everyday lives?    

The presentation is exploratory in intent. Drawing on the results of one year’s research on the production and consumption of fragrances in Japan, it is designed to raise more questions than it answers.     

Brian Moeran is Professor and anthropologist, and a member of imagine.. His present research is focused on the social processes surrounding the production, marketing, appraisal and consumption of products subsumed under the heading of "creative industries" (for example, advertising, arts and crafts, fashion magazines, media and publishing).

No registration is required