For last year's Los Angeles premiere of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," Warner Bros. executives wanted to infuse the air outside the theater and inside the lobby with the rich fragrance of Wonka bars. They turned to Neal Harris for the aromatic task.
Harris operates two small Los Angeles-based companies devoted to the world of smells. The entrepreneur assembles as many as 200 ingredients to come up with the perfect ambient aroma to enrich events and a variety of everyday products.
To entice Warner Bros., Harris used 40 ingredients, including cocoa, vanilla extracts and spices such as nutmeg.
"We had to work through layers of decision makers at Warner Bros., so before we started, we made sure we had a great chocolate fragrance," he said.
Harris settled on one that smelled "like a very realistic milk chocolate candy bar." To demonstrate how it could be spread throughout a large area by means of a scent diffuser, he filled an entire floor of Warner Bros.' Burbank offices with the fragrance. It worked -- employees recall following it to the source in hopes of finding actual candy.
On premiere night and at the party that followed, "you walked into a wonderful cocoa smell. It got you in the mood. It definitely added to the atmosphere," said Gaetano Mastropasqua, senior vice president for corporate global promotions and partner relations for Warner Bros. Entertainment.
The use of fragrance is the final frontier of so-called senses-based marketing, said Harald H. Vogt, founder of the Scent Marketing Institute in Scarsdale, N.Y., which consults on how to use fragrance as a business tool.
"It's a tremendous growth industry," he said.
"We used to chase them, and now the brands are chasing us. They want to know what's out there to use and what they need to help them get deeper into the marketplace."
Through his years in the business, Harris has fielded some fairly unusual requests.
In 1993, after a series of wildfires throughout Southern California, Harris was asked to help with a charity fundraiser for weary police officers and firefighters.
The sponsors wanted a doughnut-scented cologne, and he came up with a cinnamon crumble fragrance packaged in a doughnut-shaped bottle.
"I just hope no one tried to wear it," Harris said.
This year he collaborated with Topper Schroeder, maker of Gendarme cologne, when Angeleno magazine asked what might be used in the personality-based fragrances of three Los Angeles "Alpha Dudes": Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, restaurateur Wolfgang Puck and Lakers basketball star Kobe Bryant.
