The book Brands and Branding Geographies (Edward Elgar, 2011) in which I placed and contributed a chapter titled Sensing brands, branding scents: on perfume creation in the fragrance industry (pp. 125-149; the chapter developed out of my dissertation research) has been reviewed by Janne Lindstedt, Turku School of Economics, in the prominent academic journal Economic Geography (Vol. 88, No. 4: 451-452). In this sympathetic critique, the author appreciates „the theoretical discussion of knowledge in the context of branding geographies – a fresh theme in this field of study” (p. 451). I claimed that the “relevance and role of brands is missing from the knowledge debate in economic geography (p. 146) and tried to inspire an emphasis on this relevant mediator. I am curious about the further developments in this regard. Moreover, the book will shortly be available as a paperback version.
In the latest issue of the well-recognized German perfumery magazine INSIDE beauty I placed an article about a developing trend in cosmetics: new brands are including ingredients that are communicated through their natural as well as high-tech background. Thus, instead of focusing on either natural/organic or high-tech ingredients and a, therewith, restricted marketing palette, those new brands communicate their USP’s through a wisely-chosen interaction and integration of both worlds. This ideologically challenging trend is apparent also in several other countries – and I recognized new brands of this kind on the shelves of retailers also on my recent trip to New York. Actually, the US are a key consumer market for those brands that attract other kinds of consumer groups. Yet, how this trends turns out to perform is upon approval in the retail environment.