We forgot WHY we are making fragrances. Years ago we sold dreams, emotions and experiences, today we sell fragrances to make money. We should be making fragrances to communicate to the soul of the individual, as we did in the past. Making money can and should be the result, but the WHY should be the dreams, emotions, and experiences. The greatest strength a fragrance has is its ability to EXPRESS the INEXPRESSIBLE. If you are looking at a fragrance as a piece of art, which it is. Then too much is focused on the top, middle, bottom notes. Sometimes the pleasure of an artwork comes from not knowing, not understanding. Smelling a fragrance is the marriage of the arts and emotions, which yields us a vision. WHY is this so, because smell goes directly to the limbic system. That is where our EMOTIONS, VISIONS, COLORS, MEMORIES, FIVE SENSES evolve from. It is the oldest part of the brain, it has no capacity for words or adjectives. This link to the brain’s emotional center makes smell a fascinating frontier in behavioral science and marketing. This is WHY storytelling a fragrance will have more impact to an individual. An image tends to hit us in the gut quicker and more consistently than the written word. We are hardwired to storytelling.

WHY are we making fragrances, yes to make money, but to do that we have to connect to the consumer first. We have to impact their soul, their emotions first. That is WHY, the money will follow.  It is the process not the product. START WITH WHY.

Categories: PERSPECTIVES Philosophical Perspective

ron winnegrad

Ron Winnegrad has been a Perfumer and teacher for 46 years. As a perfumer, Ron has been able to express the world he sees through a rainbow of olfactive and emotive visions. As a teacher, Ron has helped others to see fragrance through his own multi sensorial lens.