ASIA TRAVEL TIPS.COM
Interview with Steven Howard - Aroma Scent Marketing & Music Styling
October 2010
On Sunday, 17 October 2010, ASIA Travel Tips.com interviewed Mr. Simon Faure-Field who is the CEO of Equal Strategy, a Singapore-based company that specialises in sound and scent technology for banks, hotels and other such clients.
In the interview, we discuss what scent technology is all about, whether synthetic is better than organic / natural, the costs involved for hotels - whether they be small boutique hotels or large chains - and just how much time and work is needed for an hotel to install the system.
Equal Strategy does not just work on scent technology for hotels, but also on music, and when combined in the correct way can give a whole new feel to the hotel. To be honest this type of technology can easily be dismissed by skeptics, but once you have seen, and of course smelled, the results, you quickly realise what an enormous difference it can make to hotel lobbies, corridors, public areas etc.
The HD video interview was filmed at the boutique Hotel Moon in Singapore. While already open for guests, this small trendy hotel close to Little India in Singapore officially opens on 28 October 2010.
Steven Howard:
Hello, today we are with Simon Faure-Field who is the CEO of Equal Strategy. Good afternoon to you, Simon.
Simon:
Good afternoon.
Steven Howard:
Simon, now you are working in a very unusual field within the hospitality industry on scent and sound technology. What briefly is scent and sound technology please?
Simon:
We are helping hoteliers create environments that their guests basically fall in love with. It's a space that people are going to connect with, feel comfortable and enjoy being there.
Asia Travel Tips.com:
So, you create the scent... you put the flowers in the lobby.. what is..what is it exactly you do?
Simon:
Well, we work with perfumers to develop a fra0grance that is exclusive to that particular client. And we diffuse it through the airconditioning system, so when guests walk into the space, they have an evenly diffused scent that is consistent all day long. And for music, we work with music library that has over 5 million licensed tracks and we will develop a music profile and provide that music that is heard in that space.
Steven Howard:
I know you already working with some of the biggest hotel companies in the world, some of it some very popular ones, Pan Pacific Hotels & Resort which is Singapore based, Hotel Naumi and this hotel here that we are in at the moment, the Hotel Moon... And how does it differ from a brand such as Pan Pacific which has got many hotels around the world to a small boutique hotel with around 40 or so rooms such as the Moon here in Singapore?
Simon:
I think time... Time is the critical factor there, when you are working with a smaller boutique property, you are generally working directly with the owners which mean we can... the whole process is a shorter process, and we are not having to deal with many different department heads who have different ideas and different concepts so the larger brands, however, there is more people involved... is a longer journey than it is working with a smaller boutique property.
Steven Howard:
Alright. Do you do the brands for example, like Pan Pacific, do they tend to want one particular scent throughout the group, or do they want to have individual scent that perhaps reflect the locality of the one particular hotel?
Simon:
The way we've seen things evolving is that there are actually looking to have more of a uniform scent that runs across properties, but at the same time, there are clients who like the idea of being able to have something that is a little bit more localised.
The problem with the latter is that you start to dilute the brand identity so you're building inconsistencies within that brand experience.
Steven Howard:
Right, and so for a hotel such as this, such as Moon which is very small individual property stand-alone and what would you recommend for a property such as this?
Simon:
It boils back down to the environment, the type of mood and ambience, and really what we want to reflect' and that was all part of the owner's vision.
Steven Howard:
Right, staying on the scent for a moment, and how many different scents are there for example, and are they organic, or are they ecologically friendly, .. tell us more about the scent.
Simon:
We work with one of the top three fine fragrance houses in the world, they are responsible for developing perfumes like Anna Sui, Escada, Gucci, Paris Hilton, Dunhill, so we are working with people who are very much the best in the world. And we work with them on developing a scent concept and a brief, and there we have effectively an infinite selection of fragrances we can develop.
The creations we have for our clients, they have up to around 45 ingredients; they are mostly synthetic and we can also go for organic. The couple of things that people need to take into consideration is when you are using organic, you have... they are more expensive to develop, because to develop enough rose petal oil to scent a football stadium would take a lot of roses to be grown... Whereas if we use it synthetically, it's alot more affordable. Also, there is a bit of issue in the market where people are saying that synthetic is bad for you, and natural is good.
One of the governing bodies, the International Fragrance Association... all of our works, actually works to their global guidelines from the health and safety aspect, and out of the 26 banned substances that you should not diffuse in the air, 18 are actually natural! So as long as people are being responsible in what they're doing and how they do it, and they are working with the right ingredients and are working to the right guidelines, with the right creators, they will be in good hands... the end result would be good and it would be one that you would be proud to put your name to.
Steven Howard:
Right, these all sound interesting. Again, let's stay with the small hotels such as the Hotel Moon here in Singapore where we are at the moment - small number of rooms, small number of facilities - where are the hot zones? Let's say you have a hotel such as this, where.. do you have different scents in different parts of the hotel.... how does that work?
Simon:
Well, for this property, we feel that the lobby, the lounge area and the bar, were the main, let's say, high traffic area where the guests will be arriving, departing and people will be spending more time, so this is the space we identify as THE hot spot in this property.
Steven Howard:
Right, ok...and in terms of that, what type of scent did you choose for this particular property?
Simon:
This one's actually got a blend of a couple of different elements we had from different fragrances, which the owner liked, and we felt would give this property a bit of a nice, fresh, dynamic feel... so we got a citrus topnote, we've got more of a floral body to it, so it comes across as being elegant, sophisticated and very nice as well with it.
Steven Howard:
Well, I have to tell you, it's one of the nicest smelling lobby I have ever been, which is saying something and... but you don't just do the scent technology but you're also doing the music here at the hotel as well right?
Simon:
Yup, I mean besides just developing scent smells to the lobby, we also can provide scent that would be smelt in the guestrooms, so we have a system for that, which would be using a vase with reeds and filled with the appropriate scents so y' know... Marina Bay Sands is one property we provided for their suites. Also for their limousine service - a lot of hotels have their own limo so they want to take their scent and their sounds actually to their limo, so we actually have a car diffuser that allows us to scent cars.
So looking at music, that's lots of things we can do with music, whether it's going to be music that's heard on the website, heard on the telephone, heard in the limo, heard when they visit the property, so we try to look at it from the customer journey of reaching the space...
Steven Howard:
Please continue.....
Simon:
We work with 2 major types of music libraries - one is a major label, which comprises of EMI, Time Warner, so if people want the BeeGees, they want Elvis Presley, they want Justin Timberlake, they want Beyonce... we work with that library. And also another library which is private, which is unavailable to the public but there's a lot of very high quality music, there's a license to it, so based upon what the clients requirements are, we will actually, start to work with these two different libraries and identify which one will have the greater priority. And part of that would be trying to map out across the day, the different moods for the different times of the day, so if you want more relaxed music in the morning but more upbeat in the afternoon, they can actually use technology as a way to manage that. So, for example, we have a little media player like this unit - this goes on site, we plug it into their amplifier, plug it into their network..and this allows us to manage all their content remotely, and look after the scheduling where we actually have 14-day scheduling....
Steven Howard:
When you say "look after the scheduling remotely", do you mean thats the front desk that has to take charge of it within the hotel or do you as Equal Strategy...?
Simon:
We do this. We have clients as far away as Pan Pacific in North America to clients in the Middle East, Starwood up in Tokyo, and another property down in Indonesia where we remotely manage all the content that runs in this unit, and also, it has about 60 thousand tracks we pre-installed on the harddrive.
Steven Howard:
So, Pan Pacific in North America, at the moment, in Canada possibly, you can literary change the music right this second while someone's listening to it at the hotel.
Simon:
If the GM called us and say "Simon, I want hip-hop tomorrow morning", they will have hip-hop tomorrow morning.
Steven Howard:
(Laughs) Excellent! We all know that Pan Pacific is a very happening hotel, not sure if hip-hop will go down very well for breakfast but still...(laughs) So in terms of that, so this is all, to be honest, beginning to sound a little bit expensive but this is a small hotel so how can a small hotel afford something like this?
Simon:
When you put things into context, what they are charging for their room rates, the number of rooms, we can be scenting a small hotel lobby for as little as $20 a day and we are talking Singapore dollars not US. And from that being part of a 3-year contract, we design the scent, we work with the perfumers, we loan the technology, we look after the quarterly replenishments, so from $20 a day, you can scent your hotel lobby and that's all there is to it.
Steven Howard:
And would that sort of money include the music as well?
Simon:
That will be additional. So if you're looking for music, depending on how complex it would be or not, again, you could be looking around the same figures.
Steven Howard:
So the music possibly that people can hear in the background at the moment, is this something you've created exclusively for the Moon Hotel?
Simon:
This playlist came from a private label collection - we created this playlist as a way to create a nice ambience across this space of the day without bring too time specific here.
Steven Howard:
And what sort of money would be involved with something such as this?
Simon:
Sort of the same figures I said before, you could be looking around $15 to $20 a day, gives you a starting point for something that's going to be
straight forward, non-sophisticated arrangement.
Steven Howard:
You mentioned Pan Pacific, you mentioned Starwood in Japan as well, how many hotels you have working in your portfolio at the moment?
Simon:
I think you are looking across the different services from telephone... you know, the music we are providing on the telephone, to the music we are providing to the property to what we are providing with scent.. I mean hotel-wise, off the top of the head, we've got about 80, 90 properties across the region.
Steven Howard:
For by the end of 2011, how many are you looking forward to have expanded by?
Simon:
I would be looking to expand that by about 40%.
Steven Howard:
Very good, very good.... Which particular market are you looking at primarily?
Simon:
South-east Asia is very much becoming a test case for us as to proof of concept of making things work... we've got phenomenal things happening in China at the moment. China has really opened up as a market, it's hungry, at the high end of the market to be doing things as well, and there they really need to differentiate their brands from others.
Steven Howard:
You mentioned earlier it can be a bit difficult to get into the brands, into the groups because there's so much red tape and so much things to go through... and who are you trying to target primarily? I mean all of your efforts, your marketing efforts.. where is the majority of that - is it going towards the boutique properties such as this or going towards the big winner if you like... the groups?
Simon:
I mean, our focus is spread across the two. Boutiques are very much showing the larger brands how it can be done and how it should be done, so we spend time talking to the brands, the larger global brands as well as the small so we have a split across the two.
Steven Howard:
And in terms of the process, somebody is watching this, in Phuket, in Koh Samui, possibly in Malaysia or even back up in Canada or the North America, and they say, I like to be a part of this, I like to employ Equal Strategy. I think if they want to test your product, what is the process? How does it work?
Simon:
First, they get into contact with us or we get in contact with the right person there... Basically through having conversations, then we have an understanding of where they are with regards to their timeline, how much of a priority this is, really what their vision is...I mean, vision is crucial for us, because that's telling us where we need to be. And through those conversations, we get a good idea and understanding of how quickly they want to move forward with this, or not. So testing things? We have very much found that once people start to share a lot of things with us, it's a journey we are going together. It isn't a case of pulling something out of the bag and saying "hi, this is the scent that's right for you, try it for 5 days...you like it, buy it." This is something that becomes very much an integral part of their business that they are part of creating so we're creating something with them.
Steven Howard:
Ok, I've just spent a few billions...a few millions possibly on a small boutique hotel. I've just done the airconditioning - I don't really want to rip out ceilings and have to re-install something... how simple is it to install the scent technology? The sound obviously is pretty easy, but how difficult is it to install the scent technology?
Simon:
It's quite straighforward - it really depends on how large the space is. We connect to the airconditioning supply duct as a way to carry our scent vapor to that space, so it's quite straightforward. So for example, we have a little portable, not a portable but a little black box here. This can comfortably cover a scented space of up to a thousand square foot...
Steven Howard:
A thousand square foot?! Which is how many square meters roughly?
Simon:
100... and inside, it has a scent bottle, has a pump and a timer and the tube from here runs over through the top to the airconditioning duct and, you have the space scented. For larger applications, we are actually scenting one of the pavillions at the Shanghai Expo and there we have....
Steven Howard:
Which one, sorry?
Simon:
It's one of the Chinese private enterprise pavillions and there we use a very large system that is connected to that space. We don't just provide one piece of technology for everyone. We gear our technology around what fits the requirements of each individual clients and their needs.
Steven Howard:
So from contacting you to agreeing on the fees, how long does that take?
Simon:
Within 6 weeks, they can actually have a bespoke scent that no other business in the world has, which will smell the same.
Steven Howard:
Simon, on that note, I have to say, this lobby does sound very, very nice. The music is great, I would like to thank you very much for your time today....I wish your business the best of luck.
Simon:
Lovely, thank you.
