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Paper short abstract

Nature in scents is popular within the world of lifestyle and fashion. Desolate or rugged nature signals virtues valued in Scandinavia. Flowers and rosy gardens are also present. We investigate sensory semantics, scent-mediated morality, olfactory design, and home fragrances in Nordic brands.

Paper long abstract

Affluent consumer groups are increasingly adopting virtue-signaling commitments (Currid-Halkett 2017; Bean, Khorramian, and O’Donnell 2018; Harper 2021), which stimulated the market of eco-ethical products and artisanal lifestyle commodities. Over the past two decades, Scandinavian marketers have launched a steady stream of Nordic-labeled brands on global markets for gastronomy, architecture, and fashion, and have come to represent ecological balance and ethical consciousness through a distinctly emerging “regional” aesthetic design. Skandinavisk, a British-Danish B Corp-certified joint venture, produces home and body fragrances for cosmopolitan consumers who aspire to a more balanced and empathetic way of living. In this study, we unpack the narrative and olfactory foraging strategies of Skandinavisk to penetrate an already saturated and morally contested perfume market. Through interviews and netnography, we critically discuss olfactory meaning-making and the sensory semantics of seasonal fragrance series, with keen attention to the strategic connection of the Nordics with emergent olfactory codes for cleanliness/purity and respect. Recent studies revealed distinct strategies of affective and moral governance (Emontspool and Giordi 2017; Bajde and Rojas-Gaviria 2021), along which marketers sensitize consumers to their duty of care for society and planetary resources. Our analysis builds on and extends the literature on affective governance by discussing the embedding of morality into “naturally foraged” olfactory experiences.