How do you show support for someone who can’t see?One of the greatest struggles the blind and vision-impaired face as a result of their condition is incredible isolation. Guide Dogs Australia, the country’s leading organisation for services to the blind, devote themselves tirelessly to ending this isolation. So when tasked with creating a new way to generate support for the cause, it became vital that it didn’t inadvertently exclude the blind. Anything that appealed to people’s sight, such as a ribbon or wristband, would in truth only add to the problem. Thus, we decided to create something new that would appeal to another sense entirely – smell. A unisex fragrance called Support Scent, that for the first time would allow the blind to actually recognise support around them.

We decided to create something new that would appeal to another sense entirely – smell. A unisex fragrance called Support Scent, that for the first time would allow the blind to actually recognise support around them. To ensure the appeal and quality of the scent, we approached KIT Cosmetics, one of Australia’s leading cosmetics brands. We asked them to donate their expertise and formulate a new scent, solely for our purposes, that we’d design, package and bring to market. The brief - make it desirable but also distinct enough to be recognizable to the blind.

In departing from their traditional methods of fundraising and utilising something not only appropriately inclusive, but actually desirable; the charity is discovering an entirely new support base. It’s inspiring people to get involved because the idea lets them participate in a way they know the blind can actively recognise. Post-launch tracking has shown fundraising lifted 33% when Support Scent launched. 47% of people find the project makes the charity now more relevant to them. 79% of people exposed to it now want to more actively support the cause (for women alone, its an astonishing 85%).