Estee Lauder: Smells Like App Spirit

Estée Lauder has launched a mobile application called Ascent, available for download via an Apple iPod Touch at department and specialty store counters worldwide.

The app takes consumers through a series of questions, with the answers helping whittle fragrance recommendations down to a handful of scents that fit each customer’s criteria and mood.

It currently features fragrances in Lauder’s Aramis and Designer Fragrances division as options including Donna Karan Iris, DKNY Be Delicious Fresh Blossom and Michael Kors’ namesake fragrance.

The program will bow in Nordstrom during its Half Yearly Sale weekend later this month. It is also being promoted on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and expands on Lauder's social media push foray into Facebook marketing last year.

Also last year, Canada's iScent Technologies launched its iScent App for Apple's iPod Touch and iPhone systems. The app is capable of mimicking scents of over 1,000 popular fragrances. However, due to trademark restrictions, iScent is unable to use actual fragrance brand names.

A Californian company named DigiScents also created a scenting technology dubbed iSmell in 1999. That product, which never went beyond prototype stage, was dubbed one of the worst 25 tech products of all time by PC World Magazine.