LONDON — Givaudan is taking a bite of the app phenomenon with a tool meant to help people select fragrances suited to their tastes.
Dubbed iPerfumer, the free application is available via Apple’s App Store and comprises a database of more than 4,000 prestige fragrances for men and women, information on the scents and how they rate according to the application’s users. “Traditionally, people would go to a store, try and then buy a fragrance,” said Sid Shah, Givaudan’s head of Internet technology and innovation. “[Today] consumers are going online, looking for recommendations, [visiting] blogs and asking friends [about products]. They’re buying without smelling.”
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Given the phenomenal growth of the number of scents on the market and smartphone users, the Swiss flavors and fragrance manufacturer decided to create a scent selection tool for consumers. It incorporates information from the company’s Miriad 2.0 consumer understanding tool. Givaudan devised algorithms to help steer iPerfumer users toward scents suited to their profiles, which are based on information such as age, geographic location and fragrance preferences. Users are asked to rate, for instance, fragrance families, such as citrus, chypre and floral, plus scents they have already smelled, on a scale of one to five. Based on that information and data garnered from other users’ scent preferences and ratings, the application suggests a selection of fragrances. “As more people use it, the better it is going to get,” said Shah, adding recommendations are not skewed toward particular brands or scents composed by Givaudan perfumers. “It relies on community.”
Users may also create multiple profiles to enable them to more accurately select scents for other people, too.
IPerfumer also offers a list of launches and fragrances, which have been scored highest by the application’s users. In early July, top-rated female and unisex scents included Angel, Chanel No.5 and Coco Mademoiselle, while Acqua di Giò, Terre d’Hermès and Armani Code topped the list of men’s scents.
By late June, the application had been downloaded 3,147 times and 17,824 ratings had been registered.
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