A Nose for Innovation

According to the Consumer Specialty Products Association -- whose air-care division represents more than 200 companies, including the makers of various air freshener brands -- home fragrance products brought in $2.7 billion in sales in 2004. That's projected to increase to $3.6 billion in 2006. The plug in category alone grew 25 percent last year due to innovative new products from a number of manufacturers. Procter & Gamble's Febreze hopes to be an instrumental part of driving category growth in 2006 with the introduction of Noticeables, a plug-in air freshener designed to automatically alternate back-and-forth between two complementary scents .

Getting Noticed

Research indicated that air freshener users cannot smell the scent in their homes after a short period of time. Makers of Febreze were determined to develop a product that would overcome this problem and deliver a continuously noticeable scent over an extended period.

"Established research has shown us that the nose can adapt to a single scent," says John Sebastian, Febreze brand manager. "We wanted to give Febreze consumers an option that will combat scent adaptation. Noticeables was created to deliver alternating and surprisingly noticeable fragrances that will continually freshen a home's environment."

After conducting deep consumer experience research, interviews, anthropological research at consumer homes and investigating how humans detect scents, P&G developed "a desired consumer experience". "Consumers want a consistent scent experience in their home from beginning to end," says Sion Agami, research and development for Air Care at P&G. "We also understood how single scented continuous energized products worked, and which were their advantages and opportunities."

Learning from the Past

Capitalizing on learnings from Scentstories, another Febreze product that emits the scent of candles without striking a match, P&G realized the huge advantage that alternating between two complementary scents would provide to consumers, as it would help snuff out scent adaptation/ habituation. Febreze Noticeables is available in five scent combinations: Outdoor: Morning Walk/Cleansing Rain; Tropical: Calypso Breeze/Hawaiian Paradise; Floral: Jasmine Breeze/Pink Magnolia; Vanilla: Vanilla Refresh/Vanilla Bean; and Linen: Clothesline Breeze/Meadow Songs. Each fragrance combination was carefully chosen by Febreze expert perfumers to complement each other. On its low setting, Noticeables provides an ongoing scent for more than 30 days.

Bolstering the Brand

With the introduction of Noticeables, the Febreze product lineup now plays in three main areas to include Air Care (Fabric Refresher), Immediate Action (Sprays) and Continuous Energized (plug-in units). Agami says Noticeables allows Febreze to better meet the needs of consumers as they tend to use more than one form of air care. And since Febreze is a new player in the competitive air care market, P&G needed to develop consumer knowledge, technology understanding and device development to help with speed-to-market initiatives. In response, several new methodologies needed to be developed.

"We faced the challenge of finding not only one winning perfume, but two for each scent version of Noticeables," says Agami. "Additionally, we needed to make sure that the scents were distinctive, but still complementary. We needed to identify and select in which scent camps we were going to play and how we maximized noticeability over the whole usage period." Agami says method development and the confirmation of its consumer and technical models took some time. "Having solid models was the foundation of all the work, as we knew how important each element was. All of the knowledge that has been developed will help us speed the development of new ideas."

The Future of Febreze

What other types of innovative Febreze products are in the works? Agami's team is always thinking of the next big thing and this process involves talking to consumers. "Every time we talk with a consumer we generate new knowledge. As we gain experience in the air care category, we are also thinking on ways to better meet consumer needs. Expect to keep hearing from Febreze in the future."