A global Fortune 500 chemicals company, which engineers and manufactures a wide variety of commodity and specialty chemicals and polymers, employed Inovo to help create innovative, high potential applications for one of its high margin, specialty polymer products. One of six opportunities to emerge from this initial Discovery project was an innovative consumer product concept for the use of fine fragrances. This opportunity was selected for a subsequent Opportunity Pursuit project.
The overall global retail market for fine fragrances is ~$30 billion and is growing at a healthy pace. The problem with the vast majority of fine fragrances is that they do not last long on the skin and their efficacy declines dramatically after the first 1 to 2 hours. Secondly, it is well known that fragrance smells differently on the skin than in the bottle, making it very difficult for consumers to shop for fragrance. Finally, the prevalence of fragrance skin allergies is significant and appears to be growing. Fragrance companies have been trying to solve all of these problems for a long, long time but always within the current usage paradigm.