Case Study

SECONDARY SOURCE OF DATA Q1.Identify the possible sources of secondary data for the fragrance industry. What sources can be located on the internet and how should an internet search be conducted? Research using secondary data sources:

Secondary data is information gathered for purposes other than the completion of a research  project. A variety of secondary information sources is available to the researcher gathering data on an industry, potential product applications and the market place. Secondary data is also used to gain initial insight into the research problem. Secondary data is classified in terms of its source – either internal or external. Internal, or inhouse data, is secondary information acquired within the organization where research is being carried out. External secondary data is obtained from outside sources. The two major advantages of using secondary data in market research are time and cost savings. •

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The secondary research process can be completed rapidly – generally in 2 to 3 week. Substantial useful secondary data can be collected in a matter of days by a skillful analyst. When secondary data is available, the researcher researcher need only locate the source of the data and extract the required information. Second Secondary ary resear research ch is genera generally lly less less expensi expensive ve than than primar primary y resear research. ch. The bulk bulk of  secondary research data gathering does not require the use of expensive, specialized, highly trained personnel. Secondary research expenses are incurred by the originator of the information.

There are also a number of disadvantages of using secondary data. These include: •

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Secondary information pertinent to the research topic is either not available, or is only available in insufficient quantities. Some secondary data may be of questionable accuracy and reliability. Even government  publication  publicationss and trade magazines magazines statistics statistics can be misleadin misleading. g. For example, many trade magazines magazines survey survey their members members to derive derive estimates estimates of market market size, market growth rate and purchasing patterns, then average out these results. Often these statistics are merely average opinions based on less than 10% of their members. Data may be in a different d ifferent format or units than is required by the researcher. Much Much seco second ndar ary y data data is seve severa rall year yearss old old and may may not refl reflec ectt the the curre current nt mark market et conditions. Trade journals and other publications often accept articles six months before appear in print. The research may have been done months or even years earlier.

As a general rule, a thorough research of the secondary data should be undertaken prior to conducting primary research. The secondary information will provide a useful background and will identify key questions and issues that will need to be addressed by the primary research.

Internal data sources

Internal secondary data is usually an inexpensive information source for the company conducting research, and is the place to start for existing operations. Internally generated sales and pricing data can be used as a research source. The use of this data is to define the competitive position of  the firm, an evaluation of a marketing strategy the firm has used in the past, or gaining a better  understanding of the company’s best customers. There are three main sources of internal data. These are: 1. Sales and marketing reports. These can include such things as:

Type of product/service purchased Type of end-user/industry segment Method of payment Product or product line Sales territory Salesperson Date of purchase Amount of purchase Price Application by product Location of end-user  2.  Accounting and financial records. These are often an overlooked source of internal secondary information and can be invaluable in the identification, clarification and prediction of  certain problems. Accounting records can be used to evaluate the success of various marketing strategies such as revenues from a direct marketing campaign. • • • • • • • • • • •

There are several problems in using accounting and financial data. One is the timeliness factor –  it is often several months before accounting statements are available. Another is the structure of  the records themselves. Most firms do not adequately setup their accounts to provide the types of  answers to research questions that they need. For example, the account systems should capture  project/product costs in order to identify the company’s most profitable (and least profitable) activities. Companies should also consider establishing performance indicators based on financial data. These can be industry standards or unique ones designed to measure key performance factors that will enable the firm to monitor its performance over a period of time and compare it to its competitors. Some example may be sales per employee, sales per square foot, expenses per  employee (salesperson, etc.).

3. Miscellaneous reports. These can include such things as inventory reports, service calls, number (qualifications and compensation) of staff, production and R&D reports. Also the company’s business plan and customer calls (complaints) log can be useful sources of  information.

External data sources

There is a wealth of statistical and research data available today. Some sources are: • • • • • • • • • • •

Federal government Provincial/state governments Statistics agencies Trade associations General business publications Magazine and newspaper articles Annual reports Academic publications Library sources Computerized bibliographies Syndicated services.

A good place to start your search is the local city, college or university library. Most reference librarians are very knowledgeable about what data is available, or where to look to find it. Also contact government libraries and departments for research reports/publications they may have done. The ability to effectively search and locate information on the Internet is an important skill for  education and essential for success in the 21st century. The results from a single search task can  produce an overwhelming amount of information. Without the new literacy skills and strategies that the process of searching and locating information on the Internet requires, this can quickly  become a daunting task. The purpose of this exploratory study was twofold. First, it set out to identify the specific new literacy skills and strategies that are required to successfully access information on the Internet. The second focus was to determine how the participants learned to search for information on the Internet. This qualitative study was conducted in a rural school setting in the northeast with seven middle school level teachers. Collected data consisted of observational field notes and interviews with the participants. Five main themes emerged from the data analysis: literacy skills, other skills and strategies, learning technology, emotional reactions to technology and issues of digital divide. These findings will be useful in aiding researchers and classroom teachers who seek to more accurately define the new literacy required for success in online environments. Many researchers that have conducted studies in the area of searching on the Internet recommend that further research should be completed .One way to enhance our understanding of the search  process is to examine the user's behavior by analyzing the abilities and literacy skills required for 

accomplishing a successful search. This pilot study set out to add to the understanding of the  processes employed when conducting a search on the Internet by identifying specific literacy skills and other strategies used when conducting searches and exploring the manner in which those skills were acquired.

Other sources: Plant sources

Plants have long been used in perfumery as a source of essential oils and aroma compounds. These aromatics are usually secondary metabolites produced by plants as protection against herbivores, infections, as well as to attract  pollinators. Plants are by far the largest source of  fragrant compounds used in perfumery. The sources of these compounds may be derived from various parts of a plant. A plant can offer more than one source of aromatics, for instance the aerial portions and seeds of coriander have remarkably different odors from each other. Orange leaves, blossoms, and fruit zest are the respective sources of  petitgrain, neroli, and orange oils. •

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Bark : Commonly used barks include cinnamon and cascarilla. The fragrant oil in sassafras root bark is also used either directly or purified for its main constituent, safrole, which is used in the synthesis of other fragrant compou nds. Flowers and blossoms: Undoubtedly the largest source of aromatics. Includes the flowers of several species of rose and jasmine, as well as osmanthus, plumeria, mimosa, tuberose, narcissus, scented geranium, cassie, ambrette as well as the blossoms of citrus and ylang-ylang trees. Although not traditionally thought of as a flower, the unopened flower buds of the clove are also commonly used. Most orchid flowers are not commercially used to produce essential oils or absolutes, except in the case of vanilla, an orchid, which must be pollinated first and made into seed pods before use in perfumery. Fruits: Fresh fruits such as apples, strawberries, cherries unfortunately do not yield the expected odors when extracted; if such fragrance notes are found in a perfume, they are synthetic. Notable exceptions include litsea cubeba, vanilla, and juniper berry. The most commonly used fruits yield their aromatics from the rind; they include citrus such as oranges, lemons, and limes. Although grapefruit rind is still used for aromatics, more and more commercially used grapefruit aromatics are artificially synthesized since the natural aromatic contains sulfur and its degradation product is quite unpleasant in smell. Leaves and twigs: Commonly used for perfumery are lavender  leaf,  patchouli, sage, violets, rosemary, and citrus leaves. Sometimes leaves are valued for the "green" smell they bring to perfumes, examples of this include hay and tomato leaf. Resins: Valued since antiquity, resins have been widely used in incense and perfumery. Highly fragrant and antiseptic resins and resin-containing perfumes have been used by many cultures as medicines for a large variety of ailments. Commonly used resins in  perfumery include labdanum, frankincense/olibanum, myrrh, Peru balsam, gum benzoin. Pine and fir  resins are a particularly valued source of  terpenes used in the organic synthesis of many other synthetic or naturally occurring aromatic compounds. Some of  what is called amber  and copal in perfumery today is the resinous secretion of fossil conifers.

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Roots, rhizomes and bulbs: Commonly used terrestrial portions in perfumery include iris rhizomes, vetiver roots, various rhizomes of the ginger family. Seeds: Commonly used seeds include tonka bean, carrot seed, coriander , caraway, cocoa, nutmeg, mace, cardamom, and anise. Woods: Highly important in providing the base notes to a perfume, wood oils and distillates are indispensable in perfumery. Commonly used woods include sandalwood, rosewood, agarwood,  birch, cedar ,  juniper , and  pine. These are used in the form of  macerations or dry-distilled (rectified) forms.

Animal sources

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Ambergris: Lumps of  oxidized fatty compounds, whose precursors were secreted and expelled by the sperm whale. Ambergris should not be confused with yellow amber , which is used in jewelry. Because the harvesting of ambergris involves no harm to its animal source, it remains one of the few animal fragrance agents around which little controversy now exists. Castoreum: Obtained from the odorous sacs of the North American beaver. Civet: Also called Civet Musk, this is obtained from the odorous sacs of the civets, animals in the family Viverridae, related to the mongoose. The World Society for the Protection of Animals investigated African civets caught for this purpose. Hyraceum: Commonly known as "Africa Stone", is the petrified excrement of the Rock  Hyrax.[13] Honeycomb: From the honeycomb of the honeybee. Both beeswax and honey can be solvent extracted to produce an absolute. Beeswax is extracted with ethanol and the ethanol evaporated to produce beeswax absolute. Deer musk : Originally derived from the musk sacs from the Asian musk deer, it has now  been replaced by the use of synthetic musks sometimes known as "white musk".

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Lichens: Commonly used lichens include oak moss and tree moss thalli. "Seaweed": Distillates are sometimes used as essential oil in perfumes. An example of  commonly used seaweed is Fucus vesiculosus, which is commonly referred to as bladder 

wrack. Natural seaweed fragrances are rarely used due to their higher cost and lower   potency than synthetics. Synthetic sources

Many modern perfumes contain synthesized odorants. Synthetics can provide fragrances which are not found in nature. For instance, Cologne, a compound of synthetic origin, imparts a fresh ozonous metallic marine scent that is widely used in contemporary perfumes. Synthetic aromatics are often used as an alternate source of compounds that are not easily obtained from natural sources. For example, linalool and coumarin are both naturally occurring compounds that can be inexpensively synthesized from terpenes. Orchid scents (typically salicylates) are usually not obtained directly from the plant itself but are instead synthetically created to match the fragrant compounds found in various orchids. One of the most commonly used classes of synthetic aromatic by far is the white musk . These materials are found in all forms of commercial perfumes as a neutral background to the middle notes. This musk is added in large quantities to laundry detergents in order to give washed clothes a lasting "clean" scent. The majority of the world's synthetic aromatics are created by relatively few companies. They include: • • • • •

International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF) Givaudan Firmenich Takasago Symrise

Each of these companies patents several processes for the production of aromatic synthetics annually.

Q2. Once an audience for new fragrance has been targeted, what kind of  information needed about their attitude, preference, purchase intentions, motivation, behaviors psychographic and demographics? Behavior: The perception of smell consists not only of the sensation of the odors themselves but of the Attitudes and emotions associated with these sensations. Smells can evoke strong emotional reactions. In surveys on reactions to odors, responses show that many of our olfactory likes and dislikes are based purely on emotional associations. The association of fragrance and emotion is not an invention of poets or perfume-makers. Our  olfactory receptors are directly connected to the limbic system, the most ancient and primitive  part of the brain, which is thought to be the seat of emotion. Smell sensations are relayed to the cortex, where ‘cognitive’ recognition occurs, only after the deepest parts of our brains have been

stimulated. Thus, by the time we correctly name a particular scent as, for example, ‘vanilla’, the scent has already activated the limbic system, triggering more deep-seated emotional responses.

Attitude: Although there is convincing evidence that pleasant fragrances can improve our mood and sense of well-being, some of these findings should be viewed with caution. Recent studies have shown that our expectations about an odor, rather than any direct effects of exposure to it , may sometimes be responsible for the mood and health benefits reported. In one experiment, researchers found that just telling subjects that a pleasant or unpleasant odor was being administered, which they might not be able to smell, altered their self- reports of mood and attitude. The mere mention of a positive odor reduced reports of symptoms related to poor health and increased reports of positive attitude! More reliable results have been obtained, however, from experiments using placebos (odorless sprays). These studies have demonstrated that although subjects do respond to some extent to odorless placebos which they think are fragrances, the effect of the real thing is significantly greater. The thought of pleasant fragrances may be enough to make us a bit more cheerful, but the actual smell can have dramatic effects in improving our mood and sense of well-being. Although olfactory sensitivity generally declines with age, pleasant fragrances have been found to have positive effects on mood in all age groups. In experiments involving stimulation of the left and right nostrils with pleasant and unpleasant fragrances, researchers have found differences in olfactory cortical neuron activity in the left and right hemispheres of the brain which correlate with the ‘pleasantness ratings’ of the odorants. These studies are claimed to indicate that positive emotions are predominantly processed by the left hemisphere of the brain, while negative emotions are more often processed by the right hemisphere. (The ‘pleasant’ odorant used in these experiments, as in many others, was vanillin.)

Psychographics: The positive emotional effects of pleasant fragrances also affect our perceptions of other people. In experiments, subjects exposed to pleasant fragrances tend to give higher ‘attractiveness ratings’ to people in photographs, although some recent studies have shown that these effects are only significant where there is some ambiguity in the pictures. If a person is clearly outstandingly beautiful, or extremely ugly, fragrance does not affect our judgment. But if the  person is just ‘average’, a pleasant fragrance will tip the balance of our evaluation in his or her  favor. So, the beautiful models used to advertise perfume probably have no need of it, but the rest of us ordinary mortals might well benefit from a spray or two of something pleasant. Beauty is in the nose of the beholder. Unpleasant smells can also affect our perceptions and evaluations. In one study, the presence of  an unpleasant odor led subjects not only to give lower ratings to photographed individuals, but also to judge paintings as less professional. The mood-improving effects of pleasant smells may not always work to our advantage: by enhancing our positive perceptions and emotions, pleasant scents can cloud our judgment. In an

experiment in a Las Vegas casino, the amount of money gambled in a slot machine increased by over 45% when the site was odorized with a pleasant aroma! In another study – a consumer test of shampoos – a shampoo which participants ranked last on general performance in an initial test was ranked first in a second test after its fragrance had been altered. In the second test, participants said that the shampoo was easier to rinse out, foamed  better and left the hair glossier. Only the fragrance had been changed. Although the human sense of smell is feeble, compared to that of many animals, it is still very acute. We can recognize thousands of different smells, and we are able to detect odors even in infinitesimal quantities. The human nose is in fact the main organ of taste as well as smell. The so-called taste-buds on our tongues can only distinguish four qualities – sweet, sour, bitter and salt -all other ‘tastes’ are detected by the olfactory receptors high up in our nasal passages.

Preferences: Scent-preferences are often a highly personal matter, to do with specific memories and associations. In one survey, for example, responses to the question ‘What are your favorite smells?’ included many odors generally regarded as unpleasant (such as gasoline and body  perspiration), while some scents usually perceived as pleasant (such as flowers) were violently disliked by certain respondents. These preferences were explained by good and bad experiences associated with particular scents. Despite these individual peculiarities, we can make some significant generalizations about smell-preference. For example, experiments have shown that we tend to ‘like what we know’: people give higher pleasantness ratings to smells which they are able to identify correctly. There are also some fragrances which appear to be universally  perceived as ‘pleasant’ – such as vanilla, an increasingly popular ingredient in perfumes which has long been a standard ‘pleasant odor’ in psychological experiment. A note for perfume-marketers: one of the studies showing our tendency to prefer scents that we can identify correctly also showed that the use of an appropriate color can help us to make the correct identification, thus increasing our liking for the fragrance. The scent of cherries, for  example, was accurately identified more often when presented along with the color red – and subjects’ ability to identify the scent significantly enhanced their rating of its pleasantness.

Demographics: Our smelling ability increases to reach a plateau at about the age of eight, and declines in old age. Some researchers claim that our smell-sensitivity begins to deteriorate long before old age,  perhaps even from the early 20s. One experiment claims to indicate a decline in sensitivity to specific odors from the age of 15. But other scientists report that smelling ability depends on the  person’s state of mental and physical health, with some very healthy 80-year-olds having the same olfactory prowess as young adults. Women consistently out-perform men on all tests of  smelling ability. Schizophrenics, depressives, migraine sufferers and very-low-weight anorexics often experience olfactory deficits or dysfunctions. One group of researchers claims that certain psychiatric disorders are so closely linked to specific olfactory deficits that smell-tests should be part of  diagnostic procedures. Zinc supplements have been shown to be successful in treating some smell and taste disorders. Although smoking does not always affect scores on smell-tests, it is widely believed to reduce sensitivity. A recent study at the University of Pennsylvania suggests

that, contrary to popular belief, blind people do not necessarily have a keener sense of smell than sighted people. f 

Women:

Smell-sensitivity researchers have to be very careful about the odors they use in experiments,  because a smell is not always a smell. On standard tests of smelling ability including odor detection, discrimination and identification women consistently score significantly higher than men. Similar mood-improvements have been observed in studies of the effects of perfume use on middle-aged women. But regular use of   pleasant fragrances still had a significant beneficial effect on the emotional well-being of midlife females, and another study showed that young women experience equally positive effects. Again, the cheering effect of pleasant fragrances may also make women more attractive to   potential partners. Women who believe that the use of ‘sexy’ perfumes will attract men, however, may be misguided. Women’s sensitivity to musk, an ingredient commonly used in   perfumes, is 1000 times greater than men’s. ‘Sexy’ perfumes containing musk are therefore much more likely to arouse the woman wearing them than any potential male partners. But by making a woman feel more sensual, the perfume may affect her behavior and thus indirectly increase her attractiveness.

Children: Although smell-identification ability increases during childhood, even newborn infants are highly sensitive to some important smells: recent research shows that newborn babies locate their  mothers’ nipples by smell. In experiments, one breast of each participating mother was washed immediately after the birth. The newborn baby was then placed between the breasts. Of 30 infants, 22 spontaneously selected the unwashed b reast.

Other experiments have also shown that babies are responsive to very faint differences in body odor, but it is believed that infants are highly sensitive only to specific smells, rather than a wide range of odors. In terms of odor preference, however, one significant study showed that 3-year-olds have essentially the same likes and dislikes as adults. Experiments conducted in the early 70s and replicated in 1994 revealed that children do not develop sensitivity to certain odors until they reach puberty. In these studies, 9-year-olds showed a pronounced insensitivity to two musk  odors, although their ability to detect other odors was the same as that of postpubescents and adults.