Han Sung Motor taps scent for branding and marketing

Luxury car marketing has sought to tap into nearly every area of the human senses, but Han Sung Motor is taking it to a new level by adding a fragrance to the company’s branding strategy.

The largest official Mercedes-Benz dealer in Korea released “Han Sung Interior Fragrance,” a signature perfume to be presented at Han Sung showrooms across the country.

“The reason we have come up with the fragrance is because we wanted to form a stronger emotional relationship with the brand Han Sung and our customers,” said Han Sung CEO Ulf Ausprung at a seminar Wednesday to mark the launch of the fragrance.

“We have found that the most effective way to bridge the sensory with 
relationship-building is scent. With the help of a world-class fragrance-maker we have translated the sensory experience into a great fragrance. We launched the fragrance five weeks ago and our customers love it,” he said.

The interior fragrance, developed to mark Han Sung’s 30th anniversary in the market, was inspired by four flanks of the auto dealer ― the state-of-the-art technology with modernity, contribution and respect for the local community, the craftsmanship for high-quality products, as well as luxurious and classy design and customer service.

Ausprung also provided three keywords to inspire the perfumer ― “pioneering” as the first mover in the Korean market, “authenticity,” and “noblesse oblige.”

Mimosa provides the base note to give a leathery feeling to the signature scent, added with lily and Gardenia. In order to reflect the German automobile’s history and comfortable atmosphere, chamomile and rhubarb were infused with sensual bergamot, creamy sandalwood and blond woods. A top-notch jasmine-extract Paradisone became the kick to represent Han Sung’s originality and service spirit.

Han Sung has ordered 10,000 bottles and shared it with existing and new customers and received a “very, very positive response.”

The fragrance was developed by Christophe Laudamiel, the exclusive perfumer of Iscent, a global scent marketing company. Even for Laudamiel who is famous for strings of works with high-end brands such as Ralph Lauren, Burberry, Tom Ford, Estee Lauder as well as U.S. apparel brand Abercrombie & Fitch, the collaboration with Han Sung was quite unusual.

“People get an impression of a certain place from the smell, even though they do not recognize that it is the scent that brings out the thoughts,” he said as explaining the importance of the scent even for the automobile sales industry.

By Bae Ji-sook (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)