Founded in 2006, Integra Fragrances has become a leading company in olfactory services for the fashion, luxury, design and hospitality industries, as well as banks, museums and airlines like Emirates. The company is today recognised for its excellence in designing scent identities for the world’s leading brands by leveraging the power of smell to create unique, branded experiences. Bulgari, Fendi, Ferragamo and MaxMara are just some of the prestigious brands that Integra Fragrances serves globally.

Headquartered in Italy’s Reggio Emilia, with offices in Milan, Hong Kong and Boston, the company specialises in creating bespoke fragrances that translate a brand’s DNA into sensorial experiences, which can be overlaid onto a myriad of customer journeys and experiences.

“Scent branding is about developing a signature scent that is associated with a brand, helping to create a stronger bond with consumers, thus becoming part of the company’s brand identity. It is more than just using a pleasant aroma in a specific space — it is about creating a full, immersive sensory experience,” says chief executive Lorenzo Cotti.

In 2020, Rutgers University proved that ambient scent improves recall and recognition of familiar and unfamiliar brands. People can remember a scent and its related memory with 65 percent accuracy after 12 months, while visual recall is only 50 percent accurate after just 4 months.

Decades of experience in the retail and HVAC design allows Integra Fragrances to perfume brand stores and events with over 5,000 remotely controlled devices installed worldwide. These devices are also capable of managing air quality and the role of olfactory technology will continue to grow as consumer concerns over airborne pathogens remain top of mind. Indeed, innovative new air quality controls combined with olfactory marketing systems are being adopted by market leaders.

Below, BoF sits down with Lorenzo Cotti to discover how olfactory strategies respond to growing consumer concern over air-quality while increasing brand equity and sales revenue.

What impact does in-store fragrance have on retail sales through consumer connection?

A pleasant smell is proven to increase the time we spend in an environment because it makes us feel good. A positive mood can increase by up to 40 percent due to smell. A scent can also recall images, emotions and memories more instantly and vividly than any other sense, making smell a powerful branding and communication tool for brands.

Scent branding is about developing a signature scent that is associated with a brand, helping to create a stronger bond with consumers and becoming part of the company’s brand identity.

Integra Fragrances analyses brands’ style, values, target consumers and locations, synthesised into a brief to be fashioned into a fragrance by our team of expert perfumers. It is more than just using a pleasant aroma in a specific space — it is about creating a full, immersive sensory experience.

What are the best practices when adopting a fragrance strategy for your business?

Really, the most effective approach is to embed scent in as many customer touchpoints as possible, building a multi-channel scent branding strategy at stores, events, installations, experiences, activations — everything. That’s where you see real results with improved customer recall and recognition, increasing brand affinity.

For example, Gucci Garden Archetypes first opened in Florence in 2021 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Gucci’s founding. Halfway along the path, curated by the creative studio Archivio Personale, visitors entered a perfumed floral paradise of Gucci Bloom — a hidden, imaginary garden that became a place of freedom. The room, scented by Integra Fragrances with the iconic notes of Gucci Bloom, paid tribute to the vision of inclusive femininity of the brand’s then creative director, Alessandro Michele.

The most effective approach is to embed scent in as many customer touchpoints as possible, building a multi-channel scent branding strategy at stores, events, installations, experiences, activations — everything.

Fendi offers another great example of enhancing the multi-sensorial experience of physical retail networks with a new boutique relaunch. At the end of 2022, Fendi reopened its renovated boutique in The Dubai Mall with a style reminiscent of the brand’s Roman headquarters, Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana. It is built on two floors with three main rooms, each of them inspired by a gemstone. We created a scent designed exclusively for each room, which translates the stone concept into olfactory, and emotionally matches the design — lines, colours, lighting, music, patterns and materials — of each area.

Scent can play a powerful role in immersive experiences. Integra Fragrances helps brands tell more immersive and memorable stories, opening up a wide range of different opportunities for brands.

How can Integra technology respond to growing consumer concern over air quality?

We recently developed a new concept of indoor air quality and comfort, creating environmental well-being through cutting-edge technologies. Our Sens-O techno is completely remote-controlled and sensor-accessorised, detecting the air quality of an indoor space in real time by measuring parameters such as carbon dioxide, VOCs (or Volatile Organic Compounds), temperature and humidity. Monitoring and acting on those parameters, besides saving energy, allows brands to offer themselves and their customers a better environment to work and shop in.

One great example of our safety offering in practice was our work with Bulgari. Following the great success of the Milan edition, Refik Anadol and Bulgari reproduced the “Serpenti Metamorphosis” immersive exhibition in London at the Saatchi Gallery, and then in Madrid at the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum.

The whole exhibition area — including air and surfaces — was scented and sanitised by Integra Fragrances, to guarantee the best possible indoor air quality. Serpenti Rainforest, a note created by Bulgari Parfums, by processing thousands of data through artificial intelligence, was diffused by Integra Fragrances inside the pavilion to make the visit even more unforgettable and a fully 360, immersive experience.

Our devices ensure a clean air flow, which is constantly analysed for quality and content in partnership with Honeywell, the leading company in microchannel sensor quality. Sensors show our customers the air quality indoors compared with air quality outdoors, and gives businesses the possibility to fix air quality targets to help improve the wellbeing and comfort inside their places of work, their sales areas, even the public spaces in which we all live. I believe that is the future.

How is Integra Fragrances engaging with more sustainable business practices?

As the fragrance industry moves towards more sustainable practices, we are seeking to expand and develop sustainable scent identities, using biotechnology and new extraction methods to reuse waste products.

One example was in 2020, when Benetton presented its “B-Green” project — a new environmentally friendly store format which was characterised by the use of innovative, recycled materials, with the transformation of the shop windows into digital displays and an increased focus on energy efficiency. Integra Fragrances developed a special scent identity called Visionary Spirit, which is environmentally conscious. It is vegan, created using natural ingredients from ethical and responsible sources, raw materials obtained by upcycling natural, biological waste, as well as essential oils extracted from plants with antimicrobial properties.

Integra Fragrances started its sustainable transformation journey in 2021, when we integrated CSR targets within our company objectives. Since then, we have become a “benefit company,” measuring our carbon footprint and using the Ecovadis assessment to improve our impact and to train our teams on the urgency of sustainability. We are also working towards a B-Corp certification.

This is a sponsored feature paid for by Integra Fragrances as part of a BoF partnership.