On November 22, 2024, consumer goods company Unilever announced a €100 million investment into its own fragrance house to drive in-house innovation. The company is planning to recruit expert perfumers in the United Kingdom, United States and India to work across the global portfolio of brands. Additionally, the new fragrance house will use digitally enabled fragrance design through new technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI).
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On November 22, 2024, consumer goods company Unilever announced a €100 million investment into its own fragrance house to drive in-house innovation. The company is planning to recruit expert perfumers in the United Kingdom, United States and India to work across the global portfolio of brands. Additionally, the new fragrance house will use digitally enabled fragrance design through new technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI).
While the consumer product giant plans to continue working with external fragrance houses, this new initiative "will see Unilever transition to a hybrid model, where our digitally enabled teams are involved in every step of innovation, formulating fragrances that fit perfectly with our products."
“By recruiting expert perfumers and leveraging new capabilities including digital technology and AI, we will help drive unmissable brand superiority in line with Unilever’s Growth Action Plan, developing fragrances that consumers love and enhancing the overall experience of our products,” said chief R&D officer Richard Slater.
In October 2024, Mathieu Lenoir was appointed Unilever’s Global Creative Centre Director for Fragrance, after working in the fragrance world for more than 30 years, including roles at several leading perfume houses, most recently at CPL Aromas. Lenoir has also held roles at Givaudan, Firmenich and other houses.
“I look forward to being part of Unilever’s fragrance transformation journey,” Lenoir said. “My dream, as a perfumer, has always been to be as close as possible to the consumer, and I feel Unilever is the best place to transform this dream into a reality.”
Perfumer & Flavorist+ spoke with Vivek Sirohi, vice president of fragrance at Unilever, about this new venture and what this means for its partners and customers.
What inspired the decision to create a fragrance house within Unilever?
Vivek Sorohi: Fragrance transforms our products – it locks in loyalty and adds meaningful moments to consumers’ daily routines. It also plays an invaluable role in signalling uniqueness, brand equity, driving unmissable product superiority and consumer choice.
We wanted to have more expertise in house so that perfumers are even closer to our brands and ultimately consumers. By combining our world-class R&D expertise, continuing to leverage our existing fragrance house partnerships, and hiring our own experts, we will strengthen that special blend of science and art to create better fragrances that consumers love.
The press release said that the search for perfumers spans multiple countries. What is the benefit of this recruiting strategy?
VS: Our business is based on serving the needs of consumers around the world. We want to hire the best talent in the business—spanning the United Kingdom, United States and India—to drive that expertise and create beautiful fragrances that ultimately lead to quicker product launches and differentiation in competitive markets.
What kinds of technologies are going to be used in this new fragrance house?
Vivek Sirohi, vice president of fragrance, UnileverCourtesy of Unilever
An example of this is developing fragrances that are scientifically proven to boost confidence. Our power brand Lux conducted neuroscience research with the University of Liverpool to explore the confidence-boosting effects of its fragrance via its effect on brain activity. This effect occurred as early as within 100 milliseconds. That’s about the same speed as the blink of an eye, which is well before conscious processing is possible.
Tell me about the “hybrid model” that you’re planning to implement. And how might it change its relationship with external fragrance houses?
VS: We have important long-standing relationships and ongoing partnerships with each of the leading fragrance houses. Our transition to a hybrid fragrance model means we will combine developing our in-house expertise with those existing strategic partnerships to help deliver consistent and unmissable product superiority across our stable of brands. This is an evolution of our current approach and is about getting even better at what we do and being better partners.
How does creating a Unilever fragrance house make its products better for consumers?
VS: Creating our own fragrance house will give us the ability to bring perfumers as close to our brands and consumers as possible and will allow us to respond more quickly to market trends and consumer preferences.
We will be able to use our years of technical ability to create and test unique scents faster, ultimately leading to quicker product launches, better products and clearer differentiation in competitive markets.
We will be able to increase efficiency and simplicity through greater control and insight behind the highly complex fragrance formulation process and be able to integrate fragrance development more holistically into our product development journey.
What do you think will be the most challenging aspect of this new venture?
VS: Given the speed at which digital technologies are developing, there will be many unknowns. Working collaboratively with our in-house experts and external partners, we’ll continue to harness tech and innovation as it develops even further, blending the art and science of fragrance with new discovery to create amazing products.
