By Lauren Miller
The Iris Garden in Florence is now open for its seasonal show of spectacular flowers. Following the “Zero Kilometer” local/sustainable theme, this is one of the springtime activities you can do in Florence at no expense.
Month: April 2017
Sound Postcards from Florence
By Jordyn Asakowicz
Sound Postcards from Florence – How does the city sound throughout the day? Jordan reports from different Florentine locations – including a parade, a soccer game, and the city at sunset – to give listeners an audio postcard of city moments.
Marketing Class Visits Florentine Perfume Company
By Amanda Guido
FUA’s Marketing Mix class visited with a local perfume-maker to discover the marketing practices of a niche industry.
You can smell the rose-scented air even before reaching the street where AquaFlor is located. As you turn onto Borgo Santa Croce, the inviting smell only gets stronger until you find yourself in front of the 15th century Renaissance Palazzo where AquaFlor is located. In case you could not already tell from the image above, this is no ordinary perfume store. AquaFlor is a perfume showroom and laboratory outfitted with olfactory specialists. This is not just a store where you can purchase high quality perfumes, but an experience where you are educated on scents so that you can find the right one for you. Open seven days a week, AquaFlor is truly a hidden gem in the city center of Florence.
During my experience in this magical place, I was given a tour of the grounds from their communications strategies specialist. He explained to us that the perfume industry is growing rapidly, increasing 15% from 2014 to become a 39.2 billion dollar industry. He is taking advantage of this by making AquaFlor different from any other perfumery to create brand recognition and word of mouth advertising.
Clients can spend hours just browsing different scents with the help of experienced olfactory specialists, and create their own scent to take home.
The perfume showroom itself had such a unique aesthetic: classy, put together, and vintage. The first room has diffusers, used to give rooms in the home a pleasant scent. Next, our guide then took us to a room filled with pastel-colored soaps. These are very affordable and would make a great gift for loved ones back home. The third and final room on this floor was where the perfumes are kept. The price point for the perfumes is 140€, but this is a steal considering the quality of the product. Most other perfumes have a high concentration of alcohol and water whereas these have a significantly higher concentration of the actual scent for a longer lasting experience. Even testing the perfume is unique at AquaFlor. The pure scent is concentrated in beakers and a test tube is placed upside down in this scent. You simply smell the inside of the test tube which is meant to give a more accurate feel for what the perfume will smell like when it is worn. Most other retailers spray the perfume on a piece of paper, which is not effective for getting an accurate smell. I personally enjoyed how the rooms were split up by product. From a consumer perspective, this made it easier to shop.
Lastly, we visited the lower level lab. Our guide explained the scientific and chemical aspects of the production process and showed us how the perfumes were made. We also explored scent categories, and the experiential aspect of the visit is a great marketing tool. The Instagram account of AquaFlor is beautifully curated too. You can visit AquaFlor in Borgo Santa Croce 6 in Florence, as well as check out the company’s website.
Did you know that an FUA alum is a part of the AquaFlor team? Watch this alumni video interview.
Along the Lungomare in Livorno
By Steven Scaglione
Italy is famous for its food, but did you know that each region, and even more specifically, each city, has their own specialties? When in Italy make sure to try some of these typical dishes that you won’t be able to find back home. This week’s focus is on the Tuscan port town of Livorno.
On the second day of what was planned to be a nine-day bike tour, I finally reached Tuscany’s beautiful port city of Livorno. I had been riding for about four hours, with frayed nerves from sharing the road rather unevenly with trucks of various sizes. It felt nice to pop the kickstand and sit among the trees in Parco Pertini, one of Livorno’s few green spaces just outside the city center while I reflected on my simple priorities for today: find some food, then find the sea.
After checking into a bed-and-breakfast with some difficulty (this key is for the front door?), I was ready to explore the city. With my first priority in mind, I set out to find a 5&5 (cinque e cinque) sandwich: a popular Livornese street food specialty consisting of a savory chick pea flour “cake” topped with olive oil and black pepper then placed between flat schiaccia bread.
To find the best 5&5 around, I was directed by some Livornese locals to go to “da Gagarin,” a torteria near Livorno’s own Mercato Centrale. The building was confusingly nondescript, and I’m still not sure if it has a sign on its storefront or not. But the best advertising a restaurant can have is a line of customers leading down the block, and when I saw this, I knew I was in the right spot.
Edible treasures in tow, I set my sights on the sea, looking to watch the sunset as the waves crashed on the rocks. Two enormous cruise ships sat docked in the city’s port like man-made whales with waterslides and a few freighters sailed steadily on the horizon.
Passing behind the Aquarium of Livorno, the ground under my feet seemed to morph, the familiar gravel being replaced by a seaside checkerboard of black-and-white tiles – something straight out of “Alice in Wonderland.” What was happening? Were all those hours of biking getting to me? Maybe so, but my eyes weren’t failing; these tiles were just some of the thousands composing Livorno’s stunning lungomare, or boardwalk, near Terrazza Mascagni.
The sun was going down in a ball of orange flame, setting the sky ablaze in wispy waves of pink and purple. The freighters turned on their lights to blink their presence cautiously. I unwrapped my sandwich, eating it from the paper wrapping while sitting on the concrete railing of the lungomare and thought about my trip so far. Tomorrow I would start heading south, toward Grosseto and its vineyards along the way. But tonight, just for tonight, I would sit among these black-and-white tiles until dark, watching those blinking lights and listening to the sound of the waves.