Assessing modern fragrances the way they were intended to work
This article was created by Richard Heath, in collaboration with IFF, to be displayed at the EuroSense 2024 conference in Dublin.
1: The context: the challenge of fragrance moments
Fragrance testing continues to rely on 5-point Liking scales, often in facility environments. But modern fragrances are designed to endure over time and interact with their environments. This is true in deodorants, Fabric Conditioner and Air Care. We need a new way.
IFF set Blue Yonder a challenge. How to test Fab Con fragrances which are designed to burst over time and react to their environments in the real world?
This is a common problem for research in general. Research tends to rely on two problematic methods:
Recall based surveys: Create robust data sets but are answered long after the event. People simply cannot remember very long ago.
Diary apps: Get closer to the moment. However fleeting fragrance moments may come and go before a person has time to think about their app. Moments may also occur at times when it is impossible to open the app – e.g. sports, driving, cinemas, lecture halls, at dinner.
Research has a real-world method gap
This is how Clickscape© was born. An instantaneous and subtle binary device for collecting responses to a stimulus as it happens.
2: Clickscape©: In the moment, instant data collection
New wearable technology was developed to meet the new need – Clickscape©. A simple binary button connected to an app, and then an online dashboard.
In testing, Clickscape© records 15 X more observations than a diary app
In pilot testing, we asked people to tell us when they observe any communications or presence of a very famous brand in their life. We asked one group to do this with a diary app and one group to do it with Clickscape©. Clickscape© recorded 15 X more moments. Note also how diary app moments occur in line with reminders being sent, whereas Clickscape© moments happen broadly across the day.
The 2cm diameter button is attached to clothing. People simply click it every time they notice the fragrance.
ONCE for positive
TWICE for negative
For the first time people have the ability to record their interaction with a fragrance, in their real world, in real time.
3: Going beyond liking for IFF
Clickscape© was used alongside traditional testing to validate new technology in Fab Con.
The technology is designed to improve fragrance moments over time AND reduce the number of negative fragrance (‘malodour’) moments.
A simple monadic test was set up. Two cells of people:
Wearing clothes washed with current technology.
Wearing clothes washed with new technology.
Over 3 days, we asked people to click every time they smelt a fragrance coming from their clothes:
Once if the fragrance was positive
Twice if the fragrance was negative
The first output is a simple previously unknowable fact. The average number of positive and negative fragrance moments coming from clothing in people’s daily lives – 14.
IFF could then validate new fragrance technology to learn
The new fragrance technology provides a 23% uplift in the number of positive moments
The new fragrance allows through 35% fewer negative ‘malodour’ fragrance moments
This is invaluable knowledge for R&D, and for communicating new technology to end customers.
Beyond the headlines, Clickscape© produces a trend line of fragrance behaviour over time. We know the exact time every click occurs. For the first time we can see the ‘shape’ of a fragrance behaviour as people perceive it in their day to day lives.
It is a new metric for validating fragrances. No longer a simple 5 pt mean score in a lab. Clickscape© counts positive moments. And it tells IFF whether the fragrance is creating more of them.
This bar chart is not the % of people claiming something. It is the real-world instance of positive moments occurring.
Validating fragrances in the real world
As Stan Knoops , Head of International Insight at IFF put it himself…
If you would like to discuss going beyond liking, or Clickscape© technology further, please contact [email protected], who would be happy to talk through your needs.
Stay In Touch