ScentAir and the Bloom grocery store chain, part of Food Lion, erected a giant sign at 1220 River Highway, in Charlotte, NC to promote The Bloom's new brand of beef. It'll disperse the scent during rush hour, from 7 to 10 a.m. and from 4 to 7 p.m., every day until June 18, and is visible to drivers heading west, toward Catawba County.  The web is abuzz with publicity, well done!
When you're in the neighborhood go get a whiff before they take it down!

Transparency is required when it comes to consumers' concerns about their health and the impact that a scent released in the air may have. Regulation may be on the horizon once the appropriate bodies will emerge and take action. What that action will be is hard to tell but it will force our industry to react. In an effort to be proactive and to ensure the sustainability of our industry we have joined forces with RIFM, the primary self-regulatory body of the fragrance industry. A meeting with a group of Scent Marketing key players has already taken place, now we should make things happen.
Ladd Smith, president of RIFM, has offered an "open for questions" period during which industry members can submit their most burning questions and concerns.
The intention is for RIFM to better understand the need of our constituents and for us to have temporary access to one of RIFM's technical experts and the large amount of information and data that RIFM holds in it's database. Ultimately, we would like, as scent marketers, to work with RIFM to develop plans to offer a special membership category for our industry so these benefits become permanent and the new members can showcase the RIFM logo as an indication that we do the best possible to ensure safety and compliance in everything we do.
Please submit your questions to askrifm@scentmarketing.org between now and July 15th. As always, any suggestions are welcome!

Here's another funny take on Scent Marketing. I am not quite sure if such activities would be corporately endorsed.

Image by Virgil Wong

After ingesting certain substances like asparagus whose smell comes through to one's urine and garlic odor that comes through to one's skin, I've often wondered about pleasantly scenting the body from within. Of course, fragrant drinkables presently include wines, teas and cocktails, but none of them impart a fragrance through the skin . . . how about drinkable fragrances that do? Thierry Mugler ages fragrances like AMen Pure Malt, in wooden casks like whiskies, but they are not meant for imbibing. Closer to the mark is the Japanese company that markets Beauty Rose, ingested pills that make your breath and body smell like roses.
Contemporary NY artist Raphael Lyon is also a licensed vintner and has a flavorful distillate that he feels is fragrant enough to splash on as a scent, but it is fleeting. There's a potential market here and I'm developing several concepts with mixologists and perfumers.

First registrations coming in for SCENTworld
Taking advantage of the early registration discount, the first attendees have signed up for the Scent Marketing event of the year in Miami. They come from global brands, fragrance companies and solution providers.
Speakers are coming on board as well with the exact subjects still to be decided. If you have any suggestions please let me know! Meanwhile, we have posted the conference schedule so you can schedule your travel plans accordingly.

What's inside Johnson & Johnson?
Remember when we posted what's in a bottle of perfume and some of the ingredients were not that pleasant? Johnson & Johnson has taken a new approach on transparency by launching a web site where you can see any of their products and what exactly they are made of. Well, almost...
Fragrance manufacturers are taking offense with being asked to disclose the detailed formulations of fragrances they supply to J&J and so far have been successful in not doing so. As experienced recently at the Alexandria conference on sustainable fragrances, transparency becomes key with consumers and J&J has decided to take the proactive approach. 

Aroma Essencial, a new scent-related blog from Brazil +++ Sactown, a magazine that covers Sacramento put an "orange smelling coating" on the cover (didn't say where they got it from). It was worth an article in the New York Times (June 7th) which made it sound like that's an extraordinary achievement. We know better, don't we?