Nanoscent

What if you could take a non-invasive Covid-19 test that delivers test results within just a minute? Our client, NanoScent, developed the technology that allows its users to do just that: ScentCheck, a test that analyzes their breath and delivers the results quickly and safely to their smartphones. Naturally, this efficiency raises another question: What happens if they test positive?

Problem

Bring the innovative scent recognition technology to life

Solution

Develop a cohesive communication and design strategy for the groundbreaking new digital category

ScentCheck: Making sense of scents

The Israeli startup is a pioneer when it comes to scent recognition technology. They discovered that, much like humans, viruses have a unique scent – ScentCheck detects the molecular pattern of Covid-19 with an accuracy of 85%. This makes it a valuable tool in fighting the spread of the virus at events, airports or other travel hubs – but first we had to come up with a user-friendly way of making this new technology widely available.

“Our partners at Edenspiekermann are making a decisive contribution to developing this service, which brings a bit of normalcy back to our everyday lives. The impact of their role as designers is enabling us to innovate quickly.”

First step: branding, positioning, and framing of scent recognition technology

Although our olfactory sense is one of our strongest and most intimate senses, it has played a non-existent role in our day-to-day digital lives – until now. NanoScent asked us to help them come up with an innovative way to read and digitize scents so that their technology could be used efficiently in industries such as healthcare, agriculture, and energy. One of the things that fascinated us from the start was how fast ScentCheck worked: within seconds, the technology delivered accurate results for infant health, bovine pregnancy, and air quality in factories.

“We love working with founders to bring their innovative ideas to life. And with Oren and his team at NanoScent, we are able to help design new iterations of their brand, product and service since three years already.”

Christian Hanke, Managing Director & Partner, Edenspiekermann

Adapting ScentCheck to Covid-19 and the “new normal”

The first version of ScentCheck was presented to the world at the CES conference in Las Vegas in 2018, and the technology had been used successfully in areas such as nutrition and personal health, when news of the novel Sars-CoV-2 virus started making headlines in January 2020. Within weeks, the virus started spreading across the globe and tests were often unreliable as it took up to two weeks for results to come back.

For NanoScent, it became apparent that there had to be a faster and more efficient way of testing the public – and so the startup reached out to us again. They tasked us with creating an innovative way of testing Covid-19 both safely and on a large scale – this time as partners.

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