Scent used to push BMW products

BMW Canada is now using scent to sell financial products. Yup, you heard this right! In a rare and unusual display of originality and invention (not diametrically antithetical to the digitalised notions of scent use we had introduced on these pages the other day) BMW Financial Services under its Canadian agency of record, Candari, has produced an autoshow handout card that looks like magazine scent strips.

"Joy" is the brand's global platform tagged in the ad as "Joy is the scent of a new BMW". The recipient can open the fold-over tab which then releases a leather aroma, produced by New York-based scent marketing company Scentisphere. The concept was introduced in last week's Montreal International Autoshow.
According to Marketingmag.ca: "It was important for the ad to be 'visceral' because financing isn't as interesting a topic to car show visitors as new engines or designs, said Brent Choi, chief creative officer at Cundari. 'They're not as interested in purchase options, but we wanted to continue the BMW allure and excitement', despite the unglamorous nature of the product".

Expect to see it distributed at the Toronto International Autoshow in February, and again at the Vancouver International Autoshow in March.

Related reading on Perfumeshrine: Digital Scents & Teleolfaction

Digital Scents and Teleolfaction

"One day soon you may be able to capture a fragrance snapshot of your environment and send it attached to a text message or email". Thus begins the fantasy of digitalised scents, the elusive captured into pixels that can be stored and tranmitted, a concept that up till very recently seemed as wild as colonising Alpha Centaur with men.
Still, cell phone companies are on the act already. The winner of 2005 Nokia innovation competition submitted a Scentpohone: One which was able to transmit the scents of the environment of the caller to the receiver of the phone-call. Samsung and Motorola each hold a patent for similar projects. Motorola's 2007 patent is for a small fragrance cartridge which releases aromas into the air taking energy in the form of heat from the telephone's battery, while Samsung's 2006 patent is for a perfume spraying apparatus. The hidden stuff is that patents delay the commercialisation of technologies by antagonistic companies, even though it's generally accepted that this concept will be exploited in the near future such as in the case of smell chip cards (which may be able to encompass 100 scents!) comparable to SIM cards; an idea that would find practical uses for the visually and audibly impaired as well as the scent-enthusiasts.

Listen to this: "Sitting right at your desk, you’ll soon be able to smell the roses—or baking bagels or honey-roasted nuts or crowded subway platforms—using DigiScents’ new iSmell, "a personal scent synthesizer." Now in beta testing, iSmell is a peripheral device you plug into a computer the same way you plug in speakers and printers. If you visited a Web site offering a whiff of fresh chocolate cake, for example, iSmell could pull down the code it needs to mix chemicals in just the right way and then release the designer aroma while you work on the Net. Or you could invent your own scents and add them to e-mails or a short story".[source] This not all too recent: "In 2000, Aromajet developed Pinoke, a device able to recreate smells associated with computer games. Digital signals written into software code trigger the aroma generator to emit precise amounts of the appropriate aroma. The American company also created E-Commerce Kiosk that have fragrance generating devices mounted inside to install the perfumes and cosmetics aisle of department stores. One of the ideas under development is a mother's scent programmed into an aroma generating device placed near a crib to help comfort a baby". [source] Adobe released its Net sniffer, Odorshop in 2007 but it didn't receive coverage. RealAroma's Web site (Real Aroma") advertises a box which ises "Real Aroma Text Markup Language" (and is even functioning on slow modems). Macintosh CEO Steve Jobs has also announced that he aims for future MaC computers to be able to handle odours the same way they're now able to play CDs. Art is also exploiting the concept: Usman Haque designed Scents of Space in 2002, a smell system which allows for 3D placement of fragrances without dispersion (as pictured in the top pic).

Jenny Tillotson, a researcher and designer at the University of the Arts in London, England, is responsible for materialising the concept and she compares it to an olfactory i-Pod (which sounds utterly cool!) "Tillotson produced the world's first interactive scent outfit. She called her prototype dress 'Smart Second Skin'. (You can read about this here) Smart because it senses the wearer's mood, 'second skin' because it interacts with the wearer and their environment". Another gadget produced by Tillotson is the button-sized 'eScent', based on bio-sensors monitoring changes in physiological factors (blood pressure, respiration and skin's electric potential) and signaling the lab-on-a-chip devices when there is some change in the above to accordingly adjust the released scent. "Though currently crude at detecting more subtle mood changes, the idea is that eScent will eventually be able to detect stress or anxiety and then release appropriate scents to soothe the wearer", as three quearters of our emotions are affected by smells, as the research team indicates (Sounds awfully much, doesn't it?), as well as help in coping with certain ailments.
"Another application is eMos, a button-sized gadget which senses the frequency of sound made by an approaching mosquito and triggers the release of a small amount of repellent. Tillotson says that she hopes that eScent and eMos will be on the market within the next five years".

And if that doesn't sound promising enough, there are also at least two companies who use digitalised scents: Storing primary smell blocks in cardridges and then combining them into a special built-in chamber before emitting them in the atmosphere, ScentDome uses this technology for scent-enabled websites as such as ScentTv.tv (a multi-media portal only reachable from the US for the moment), while TriSenx is a software provider for websites, but for now the most popular product is an audio CD almbut with an accompanying scent-track.

Still the possibilities for TeleOlfaction are huge, gaming and entertainment included: Imagine watching a TV series or film or a video/computer game and being able to smell the environment alongside the heroes, a concept already embraced by Japanese advertising since 2008, to astonishingly positive effect.
It looks like the future holds many scented surprises still.

Related Reading (links taken from we-make-money-not-art.com): A special headset that lets holidaymaker experience surround vision, sounds and smells, the IQ clothes , Cyranose 320, an electronic nose device to diagnose pneumonia and sinusitis, SNIF a fragrance patch that release more or less perfume depending on what kind of space you�re in, Zen-sorial car, the Sensory Gateway, robotic Judas roach, 3D scents.

Quotes from an article named "Digital scents" by Mico Tatalovic for Cosmos Online.

pics via greenamerican.us , we make money not art, and scentcom.co.il

No.18 from Chanel Les Exclusifs: fragrance review

When I fist heard about the new line by Chanel, officially termed Les Exclusifs, or affectionately termed Les Prétentieux, the one which I was most in anticipation of was no.18. Named after the number of the Chanel fine jewelry boutique at Place Vendôme it is a scent based on ambrette seed , a vegetal and very costly ingredient that natural perfumers use for substituting real and synthetic musk in their perfumes.
I had envisioned a whole scenario of soft smooth aromas in my mind, lured by the promise of musk that is one of my top favourite notes in creation in most of its nuances and incarnations. Not even the prophet Muhhamad has been so entranced by the promise of musk as I have!

However my impression of ambrette seed largely derives from the oil distilled and the absolute used in perfumes which I have had the rare pleasure of smelling and not the unshelled variety of the seed which I later found out goes into the production of no.18.
Hibiscus Abelmuschus, aka ambrette seed, is a plant of the hibiscus family whose names derives from the Greek ibis (a kind of bird that supposedly eats it) and the Arabic Kabbel-Misk (which means grain of musk). Usually the seeds of the plant when they “hatch” are pressed for their precious oil which takes on a soft, sweetish, skin-like aroma. According to Mandy Aftel the smell is sweet, rich, floral and musky all at once.

Imagine my surprise and dare I say a little disillusionment when I actually got my decant and sprayed the precious juice on my skin. An acrid, pungent smell first hit me that was not the richness and powderiness I anticipated so eagerly.
In fact it reminded me of an anecdotal story I want to share with you. While still little I had a penchant for mixing brews and potions and generally messing with spices, aromas, pomades and yes, perfumes. I found the whole concept of it fascinating and wanted to see how different smells could be combined and nuanced. Spices and cooking are a logical introduction and having been blessed with a mother who cooked well and kept a lot of interesting stuff in the kitchen cupboards I took them out one by one and started experimenting. Once it was the cloves: crushing them, then burning them (they do produce a different, very smoky aromatic sweet smell when burned). Then the pimento and saffron: experimenting with boiling them or immersing them in oil like I had seen women do with basil, rosemary and thyme for aromatizing olive oil (and yes, this is a valid practice that produces mouthwatering results). The stage that really did me in was mace. It was a spice I loved sprinkled on creams and cookies and in meat dishes. It gave a rich oriental, middle-eastern flavour to everything and I loved its ambience. Little did I know that upon burning the unshelled nut in the fireplace (which is quite a hard light brown one) the pungent smell would pervade the house to a point of suffocation and produce fumes that would take eons to clear out rendering my parents furious at me and me nauseous of that smell for life.

Sadly, it was that bitter childhood memory that the initial impression of burned pickles emanating from my no.18 sprayer produced in me. Of course I might be exaggerating because the effect is not nearly as strong as all that, although the whole scent is obviously orchestrated around the solo violin player of ambrette seed, there is no doubt about that.
The effect is certainly not ordinary at all and it only bears a slight resemblance to some oudh fragrances I have smelled and the likeable weirdness of Timbuktu by L’artisan Parfumeur.
Maybe this is an omphaloscopic post and I am analyzing this too much. The point is this medicinal, strange element deterred me from appreciating the full spectrum and possible beauty of no.18. I braced myself for the development, which soon came in the form of sweetish woody and fruity notes of a non-descript nature that in my humble opinion deter from the more daring opening that although repulsive to me personally due to the associations might be a strong pull to people who are interested in the adventurous, distinctive and different. The base is also a little synthetic smelling as if the natural aspect of ambrette seed is anchored with materials invented wearing a white robe, which is a bit antithetical to the promise of a rich vegetal smell.
The modernization of the concept so that it would not recall a natural artisanal perfume, but one issued by a pedigree great house does not work to its favour I think.

Jacques Polge has revealed in an interview that this is his favourite of the line-up and I can see how a person who doesn’t like oakmoss (as discussed before) and is an oriental lover would prefer this. It is certainly the most innovative of the lot and I dearly wish I had the virginal mental and olfactory make-up to really appreciate no.18. As it is, I am unfortunately unable to. It would be like uprooting a mighty tree out of my brain.




Art photography by Chris Borgman courtesy of his site.