In December 2010 Symrise was looking for new ideas and business opportunities for its Mint business line. Symrise decided to launch research on Mint with three key objectives: explore consumer motivations and insights regarding Mint; understand consumer expectations in terms of taste and sensorial experience; and detect new business opportunities for Mint product development. Research showed that consumers were very happy with the Mint experience at stake, yet Mint is a treasure chest where other kinds of combinations can be made, especially with other flavors or other's experiences. The research showed strong differences between countries: Mint is strongly linked to cultural habits, and has a strong potential for offering new kinds of sensorial experiences.
The temporality of sensations has been acknowledged in the food industry and for a long time as a potential key driver of liking. However, no practical method was available until now for tracking down such a temporal sensory signal simultaneously on a number of attributes. TDS fills this gap. We illustrate our methodology by a study on fragrances produced by Body Washes. We were interested in knowing which concrete stimuli emanating from the product's features are perceived as dominant and when.