Air Wick Improves Product Research Techniques Using Personalized Questionnaire

Air Wick, an air freshener brand produced by Reckitt Benckiser, was launched in 1943 in the United States and is now sold worldwide. 

With product personalization becoming a popular trend, Air Wick wanted to explore the concept of personalized fragrance product development. To do this, they needed to collect input from customers.

Marketing Campaign Objectives

Air Wick was in the process of shifting their focus to target a millennial audience. They wanted to understand the audience’s appetite and preferences in order to inform the development of personalized fragrance products.

Marigold Engage+ was chosen to replace the brand’s existing research techniques, which were both costly and time-consuming, with more efficient and effective online research. This allowed Air Wick to capture valuable audience data and email marketing opt-ins, both of which ultimately enabled the brand to deliver highly personalized customer experiences and garner stronger response rates from marketing campaigns.

We have demand from markets who want to activate the idea based on the results, which has been a completely new way to validate a concept.CAROLINE STEWART, GLOBAL DIGITAL BRAND MANAGER, RECKITT BENCKISER

Fragrance Selection Solution

Using Marigold Grow, Air Wick published a highly personalized, research-focused marketing campaign that was targeted at millennials. Costly, time-consuming offline market research techniques were replaced with Marigold Grow capabilities. This enabled Air Wick to discover exactly what millennials thought of the proposed, personalized fragrances by utilizing questionnaire functionalities.

Its “Fragrance Selector” campaign included two routes for participants to follow: “create your scent” or “personalize a product.” When personalizing their product or scent, participants were taken through a set of questions and were required to choose one out of three products to personalize. On customizing their scent, participants could then choose the fragrance experience they’d like to have, whether it be to feel awake and energized or enjoy the warmth and spice of the season.


Both routes led to an interactive meme generator, where participants could write a custom message on their chosen product or select to add a stylish, pre-designed image.

After completing their personalized image, participants were asked if they would be prepared to spend a certain price for their unique product and other key questions that helped inform Air Wick on product development. 

Participants could then submit their personal details and “opt-in” for future email marketing campaigns from Air Wick, which will later be used for promotion of the product. To maximize the number of responses for a deeper understanding of its target audience, Air Wick gave those who entered the chance to win the product they created.

Through this interactive research method, Air Wick captured 15,000 interactive campaign responses and replaced their costly, time-consuming research techniques with efficient and effective online research.

The Results

The Air Wick Fragrance Selector campaign was able to collect important information to inform product development and effectively build their opt-in list. Overall, the campaign resulted in 15,000 entries.

With Marigold Grow in place, Air Wick is poised to continue to engage customers with creative promotions and experiences.

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