01/ 3/2007

Redefining Personal Space

Scentannetainter There's a great story in today's New York Times about the booming market for air fresheners among teens and young adults.  Proctor and Gamble's Febreze, for example, offers a $27.99 "scent player" that resembles a CD boombox.  It runs interchangeable  "discs" ($5.99) that radiate smells rather than sound. 

What really struck me was a quote tucked in at the end from Christina White, senior marketing vice president at Anne Taintor, a quirky women's line that mocks the traditional vision of the 50's housewife:

“Young people are more oriented towards the inside than the outside. They’re in front of their computers. They’re not taking long walks in the woods. The idea of scent tended to be a personal thing, but younger people are seeing it in a much broader way. They want to control everything around them in their own spaces.” [emphasis mine]

Scenting your dorm room feels like the natural extension of personalization online (custom IM icons, MySpace) and the physical display one's personal space (the iPod sound cocoon, the Bluetooth earpiece).  College students are literally marking their territory with scent.

Read the full article here.

Misha Cornes

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://threeminds.organic.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/2018

Comments (1)

Angela Di Pietro:

....also invading public spaces....

Here's an interesting article that appeared in Time magazine regarding a new trend that has retail stores and hotels customizing and dispersing unique scents to entice shoppers and influence consumer behavior.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1543956,00.html

Posted by Angela Di Pietro | January 4, 2007 9:18 AM

Posted on January 4, 2007 09:18

Post a comment


Type the characters you see in the picture above.