Why developing a new perfume (should be) like writing a novel or a song

    I was explaining to my wife why, for all my interest in writing, I would never try to write a novel or even a short story because I had nothing I wanted to say and nobody I wanted to say it to. Yet I've written songs and each one held a thought or message I wanted to share with particular people. Apply this thought to fragrance creation and it will change the way you go about developing a new perfume.
   
    Getting back to those songs, some were funny; some were exuberant. Some were intended to push people to reexamining their values. The thoughts behind these songs were all over the map. So can it be with perfume.

    Marketers focus on what they believe they can sell. Their thinking is always in the past. That which has worked before is likely to work again and, in this, they are mostly correct. But the breakthrough comes not when the marketer pushes the perfumer to create a new version of a proven, successful fragrance but rather when the perfumer has a thought, an idea, a message, that demands expression ... through perfume. Let the marketing people now break a sweat trying to sell it.

    Although this new fragrance might not be what the marketing people wanted, there is a marketing story for it, the story -- the message which the perfumer struggled to convey through the scent. It is almost certain that the idea for this scent was accompanied by various mental images.

    These images can now be used to develop a marketing story and because these images will harmonize with the scent itself, the marketing story can be clear, strong, and wonderfully effective.