Actionable Information from Top Scent & Sensory Marketing Experts and Practioners

Participate in two full days of presentations and lectures from the leading authorities in the field. Packed with renowned experts, authors, and engaging speakers, ScentWorld is an event you must attend!

Kristopher Beck, Director of Product Development, Hilton Worldwide -

Avery Gilbert, CEO, Synesthetics, Scent marketing researcher - Smell scientist, entrepreneur, and author Avery N. Gilbert is a fragrance industry innovator and pioneer in the areas of olfactory mental imagery, multisensory correlates of odor perception, and the psychological factors that bias odor judgments.  He created a sensory psychology research group for a major international fragrance company, founded three olfactory-related startup companies, and served as an advisor to two others.

Gilbert’s training in evolutionary biopsychology led him to academic research on odor perception and later to commercial R&D management and entrepreneurship. Following an NIH postdoctoral fellowship at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, he joined the Monell faculty. There, he co-authored the National Geographic smell survey—the largest participatory experiment of its kind. Eventually leaving academia to create and lead the sensory psychology research group at Givaudan Roure Fragrances, Gilbert became a vice president there.

Gilbert’s entrepreneurial experience includes a stint at DigiScents, Inc., where he was a member of the founding management team and vice president for sensory R&D.  The company developed technology to deliver smell via electronic media and the Internet. Gilbert also founded and later sold Cranial One Corporation, which produced the Cranial I Quick Sniff® smell test that was marketed to doctors. Additionally, Gilbert runs Synesthetics, Inc., a company that provides innovative multisensory research for the development and marketing of consumer products. Clients include leading brands in air care, personal care, and fine fragrance.

A fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and a member of the Association for Chemoreception Sciences and European Chemoreception Research Organization, Gilbert has published twenty-nine scientific articles. His work is often cited in the media, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Financial Times, New York Times, Boston Globe, The Economist, BusinessWeek, and Newsweek. His book, What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Time Book Prize in science and technology, and short-listed for the Royal Society Science Book Prize. In addition, Gilbert has discussed the science of smell on national television and radio, including FOX, NPR, CNN, CBS, and MSNBC. He speaks frequently to professional groups on scientific and marketing trends in olfaction, and blogs on the science and culture of smell at firstnerve.com.

Simon Harrop, CEO, BrandSense Agency - Simon Harrop is the CEO and co-founder of BRAND sense Agency, which he launched in 2006 with partner Martin Lindstrom. In his role as a sensory expert, Simon has been consulted by many media including the BBC, Sky News, International Herald Tribune, Brand Strategy and the Sunday Times. Simon is also a regular speaker, panel guest and contributor on the international conference circuit, having  spoken at events such as Marketing Week Live, Retail Interiors, Experience New York, The Israeli Presidential Conference and the World Perfumery Congress in Cannes, and now, ScentWorld.

Simon has created sensory strategies for brands such as British Airways, P&G and General Motors. Sensory Branding is now used across the globe by companies such as Nestle, McDonalds, Unilever, and Glaxo Smith Kline.

Dr. Aradhna Krishna, Dwight F. Benton Professor of Marketing, University of Michigan, Ross School of Business, sensory marketing researcher - Dr. Aradhna Krishna received her Ph.D. from New York University in 1989, her M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad in 1984 and her B.A. in Economics from Delhi University in 1979. Besides the Ross school, she has also spent time at Columbia University, New York University and the National University of Singapore.

She is considered the pioneer of the field of sensory marketing. She defines sensory marketing as sub-conscious triggers that affect how people make purchase and consumption decisions. Her research explores ways in which a product’s look, feel, taste, sound, and smell contribute to how it is perceived, and how people respond to it. She held the first academic conference on sensory marketing, has edited a book on the subject and is writing a second, and runs a sensory marketing research laboratory. In addition to sensory marketing, she works on designing winning cause marketing and corporate social responsibility programs, and on constructing engaging pricing and promotion policies.

She has more than fifty published articles which have appeared in the most prestigious outlets including the Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Marketing, Harvard Business Review among others. Her work has been cited in various media such as New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, LA Times, NPR, Economic Times India, Globe and Mail, Telegraph UK. She is a lead Area Editor for the Journal of Consumer Psychology, an area editor for Management Science and serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, and Marketing Science.

She has been on the Board of Directors of Northern Technology International Corporation, a consistent Forbes best 200 small company (2002-2005), and is currently on the advisory board of Dr. Maths. Her consulting and research relationships include Best Buy, Procter & Gamble, Red Scout, The Futures Company, Ohrenstein & Brown, Reeves & Brightwell LLC, C.S.Mott Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan, among others. She has also served as an expert witness for Dell and Hallmark Entertainment Inc.

Click here to hear a radio interview with Dr. Krishna.

Joy Malnar, Architect, Associate Professor, University of Illinois School of Architecture, Author of Sensory Design - Joy Monice Malnar, AIA is a licensed architect and Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she teaches architectural design studios and a sensory design seminar in the School of Architecture. She holds an M.Arch from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has twice been a fellow at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) where she explored the sensory cues available in immersive virtual reality environments. Her professional experience includes employment at Whitaker Associates, and Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill. She has co-authored The Interior Dimension: A Theoretical Approach to Enclosed Space, and Sensory Design, which develops a sensory typology to assist designing for the full range of the human senses. Malnar is one of the founding editors and currently serves on the Advisory Board of the journal, The Senses & Society. She has lectured on aspects of sensory design in Singapore, Sydney, Seoul, and Doha. As a result of the publication of Sensory Design Malnar was invited to give the inaugural address “Design Comes to Its Senses,” at the Concordia Sensory Research Team (CONSERT) conference of Concordia University.  The address was co-sponsored by and presented at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), Montreal, Canada. Malnar’s interest in the cultural conditioning of the senses led to her newest book, New Architecture on Indigenous Lands (2013). It moves beyond academic, phenomenological theory to present buildings designed by architects who recognize that sense experience varies from culture to culture.