IFF turns to arty marketing to boost slow flavors sales
unconventional marketing campaign involving a combination of
strange flavors and art for art's sake, in an attempt to remind its
customers how creative it can be.
The New York-based manufacturer of flavors and aromas is teaming up with Visionaire magazine to launch Visionaire 47 Taste, a project that brings together artists, chefs, photographers and flavorists.
Visionaire Taste, due to be released next month, consists of twelve different images combined with twelve specially developed flavors on taste-films, all presented in a carefully-bound publication.
"This is a way of having people look at flavours in a new light. More than anything, we want our customers to take another look at the passion with which we approach our flavors," said a spokesperson for International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF).
The flavors chosen are far from conventional, and include a condensed milk flavor termed 'Mommy' to go with an image by artist Yoko Ono, a sea spray and sweat flavor termed 'Power' to go with surfer Laird Hamilton's creation, and a fresh pine cone tip flavor developed for celebrity chef Ferran Adrìa's contribution termed 'Luxury.'
"Even though this marketing project may not result in any direct interest, it will remind people what we are all about, and could inspire customers to want to look into new flavors. All suppliers hope they can somehow inspire their customers in order to bring in new business," she added.
"We hope this will make people look at IFF as a company that can break new ground in a very old industry."
This is not the first time that IFF has collaborated with the magazine. An earlier project termed Visionaire Scent paired visual artists with the company's perfumes. According to IFF, the fact that the project was "such a break from the normal" resulted in significant interest, with several fragrances taken up commercially.
"Visionaire TASTE allows IFF's creative team to explore uncharted space unfettered by traditional constraints of cost materials or application. The results may well yield the creative techniques, trends, or nuances that will inspire or drive future creation. It is through these creative epiphanies that IFF will contribute to the future market success of our client's products future market success," said Kip Gibson, IFF's vice president, global accounts.
Indeed, the flavors company may well be in need of a marketing boost, after announcing a further decline in sales in its third quarter last month.
The company's net income fell 18 percent after the deduction of a substantial tax benefit relating to the repatriation of foreign earnings and restructuring charges related to the sale of it European fruit business, the company said.
The sale of the business also had a strong impact on the company's US and European flavor sales, which fell 10 and 14 percent respectively. Fragrance sales fell 2 and 3 percent respectively.
