Givaudan adds olfactive social listening to fragrance creation

“DigiPulse is a digitally strategic way of capturing feedback from consumer’s online posts on their impressions of fragrances they’ve used or experimented with in their everyday lives,” ​explains ​Arnaud Guggenbuhl, head of Global Marketing Insight and Image at Givaudan. 

“Most importantly, it will enrich the way we craft perfumes that will continue to inspire consumers around the world.” ​

The company’s Fragrance and Beauty division inaugurated the proprietary tool in France and expects to launch in the United States by the end of the year, with a global roll-out planned for 2022.

Enriching fragrance with olfactive algorithm​

In its quest to comb the web for fresh fragrance feedback, DigiPulse has already collected and categorized over 2.5 million online comments across a range of social media platforms to date. 

“The most differentiating element of the tool is its ability to focus on the olfactive data, revealing insights on different aspects of the fragrance itself, on top of more obvious comments around packaging, marketing and advertising,” ​according to the company. 

Once the algorithm has targeted and analyzed the olfactive perceptions of both established and new fragrances, Givaudan perfumers and creative teams decode the sensory insights to capture the mood behind the data. Findings are then incorporated into the fragrance creation process, already digitally augmented through Carto. 

Carto and the Odor Value Map​

Givaudan, a recipient of multiple Fragrance Foundation Awards for technological breakthroughs, launched Carto to bring science and technology to the service of perfumers​. The company says the innovation “reinvents the way perfumers create”​ and “broadens the field of olfactive references”.​

“The system allows them to bring together physico-chemical science and technology to maximize the use of our palette of ingredients while making experimentation simpler and fun,” ​Maurizio Volpi, president of Givaudan’s Fragrance and Beauty Division, said at the April 2019 launch.

“It brings to life their ideas, inspirations, and creative concepts in a very efficient way while taking away the repetitive tasks. The role of the perfumer remains at the center of creation, Carto comes as the digital support they can use to enhance their creative work.”​

The platform is designed to intelligently use Givaudan’s fragrance ingredients 'Odor Value Map' to maximize the olfactive performance in the final formula and accelerate product development. An instant-sampling robot produces a fragrance trial at a speed that would be impossible using traditional methods, the company explains.

Carto is part of the Computer Aided Creation program at Givaudan’s Digital Factory, a project accelerator inaugurated in Paris in January 2019 to drive digital transformation and anticipate trends.