THE MARKETING OF FRAGRANCES:
BRING BACK ITS ESSENCE
Peter B. Lichtenthal,
Senior V.P.Global Marketing, The Estee Lauder Companies
The escalation of new launches: 32 in 1980 to 227 in 2003, has led to declining growth in the fragrance market. There is heavy competition from other gift categories like pens, watches, chocolates: we need to upgrade and enhance the emotional experience of buying fragrance and make fragrance an object of desire, the gift of choice. How? Packaging, e.g. by affordably upgrading e.g. bottle design; "Provenance": the creative history of the fragrance; Retail environment; Innovative marketing; Holiday time:restore the value of perfume as a gift. Marketers should try to increase creative time and perfumers must push boundaries of creativity vs commercial viability.
THE CHALLENGES OF NEWNESS
Nicolas Mirzayantz, V.P. Global
Business Development Fine Fragrances & Toiletries, IFF
The industry has gone for safety at the price of excitement. Branded products are not given time to develop market share, leading to new product launches. A fault is that we benchmark a market product and ask perfumers to create something like it. Instead, we should encourage perfumers to create something new, e.g. see Angel, which was never tested. We need consumers to love, not just like a fragrance. Newness provokes desire, leading to success; it provokes addiction, leading to enduring success.The theory of newness has 6 facets: change, surprise, incongruity, complexity, uncertainty, and puzzlement. A graph of 4 quadrants could be used to place perfumes: 1. "Intrigue", 2."Broad appeal", 3. "Cult", and 4. "Legend". e.g. Coco Mademoiselle with its elements of puzzlement and surprise would go in Quadrant 1, Shalimar in 3, and Beautiful or Angel in 4. It is possible for fragrances in all 4 quadrants to become classics. Which quadrant you want to be in determines marketing strategy which determines how to launch and market the brand.
GLOBAL OR LOCAL, THE NEW
STAKES FOR BEAUTY MEGABRANDS
Guillaume de Lesquen, Directeur
General Adjunct, Lancome Int’l
To create a leading global brand we need to love women. Each product speaks a language of emotion. For a brand to always be modern it needs to adapt to local specificities, e.g. skin whitening in Asia, hair products in Brazil, where hair is so important to the image of beauty. Perfume has a local dimension and beauty empowers women, gives them more confidence.
CREATIVITY AND THE CONSUMER
Sumit Bhasin, Global
Prestige Beauty R & D and Beauty Care Perfume Dept, P & G
Fuel growth through consumer driven creativity. How does perfumery add value? Deep consumer understanding goes beyond functional to emotional needs. Perfume contributes to branding. Leading edge science creates new fragrances. There can be scale benefits, as at P & G, the largest perfume raw material purchaser in the world. Examples of innovation by P & G include Baldessarini by Hugo Boss, where the fresh, spicy, woody perfume using patchouli flower brings the brand, for the "Silver Surfer", 45 - 60 year old man, to life. Another example of the perfume being fundamental to the success of the brand is Herbal Essences.
Nicole Fontaine, Former Industry Minister and Former President of the European Parliament
Organised lobbying is vital; the Cosmetics Directive went through because there was not sufficient lobbying. It is irresponsible to make these directives without taking into account economic reality and social impact. There should be a fair globalisation of trade, non-tariff barriers should be eliminated, and there should be a concerted fight against counterfeit products.
NATURAL PRODUCTS, BRANDS
AND CONSUMERS: WHAT RESPONSIBLE POSTURE FOR THEIR SUSTAINABLE FUTURE?
Michel Mane, President
Mane Americas
The gap between functional needs and emotional desires can be filled by natural products. Trends in the food industry are mirrored in the fragrance industry, e.g. fresh organic foods. Natural products can deliver: psychological vs functional benefits; attractiveness vs usefulness; desire vs need. But there are 3 damaging drifts: 1) Over-romanced use of natural products leads to confusion in the consumer, e.g. embellished fragrance descriptions lead consumer to believe the natural oil is present; essential oils at very low levels give no therapeutic effect, even though that is implied.2) Unethical extension of e.g. lavender/lavandin: consumers need to be educated that, like wines, essential oils have a well-defined sense of origin and odour profile. 3) Negative drivers, e.g. allergen regulations: e.g. in the case of linalol, which isomer was tested and led to its inclusion in allergen list? We should be testing the essential oils, not just taking as read that they are also allergenic: Essential oil manufacturers must fight back! Junglessence technology goes beyond headspace analysis, e.g. the flower Lirio de Breyo produces much more Hedione and jasmine lactone than Jasmine absolute: this technology allows capture and reconstitution.
BRAZILIAN PERFUMES: TRADITION
AND KNOWLEDGE FOR A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Philippe Pommez, International
Vice President, Natura
Louis Malle, in his 1870 book Livre de Parfum told that Peruvians used perfume at the time of the Inca civilisation. Brazil has immense biodiversity: a vast number of species (thousands: 22% of the world’s plant and animal species) in such different environments as the Amazon and the Atlantic Rainforest. There are 178 million people of many colours. Management of the rainforest and other Brazilian eco-systems must be environmentally and socially just and economically viable. Natural aromatics such as eucalyptus, citrus fruits, mint and rosewood are in a process of reforestation. The essence of sustainability is to create wealth and respect relationships. Tradition links emotion to function in Brazilian fragrances used in baths and spas. We saw a video of the story of Piripiri, a warrior with an amazing scent that exuded from him and captivated all the girls in the village. They tied his feet to his hair while he slept but the next day he had disappeared forever and a plant grew in his place : the piripiri. This is a legendary fragrance for scenting baths and women’s hair.
AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW ON
THE STYLE AND AURA OF PERFUMES
Tim Schaffner,
President Fragrances Worldwide, Symrise
Shorter product lifecycles reduce the impact of the brand message. With 223 new launches in 2003, fragrance is becoming a commodity item rather than luxury goods. A commodity is that which affords convenience, advantage or profit, is easily available, where supply outpaces demand, and leads to sameness. Consumers want novelty and newness in a positive way. A luxury purchase is driven by sociological/psychological impulses; the product is unique, conspicuous (to demonstrate wealth and success), has quality, and comes at a price. But luxury is is in big trouble due to its accessibility, supply vs demand, and the "cool" factor: if I want it but can’t have it now, then save to get it, I get a feeling of having indulged myself. Looking for creativity outside the industry, e.g. Absolut: creates lifestyle without a bottle in the ad; Nokia cellphone makes the "toy" a necessity; ipod: size + functionality + "cool": size matters if someone tells you it does. Target and reconnect with the customer; perfumers need to create unique fragrances for us to build classics: inspire, infuse an international touch, rock the boat, and take time to "finish" the fragrance. Go with your instinct and have the courage to see the opportunity when others say there are none.
THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE
BANNED
Luca Turin, PhD, Chief
Technical Officer, Flexitral
There are 3 paths to new materials: 1) Imitation and development, as in the macrocyclic musks and the damascones, 2) Hard work and lots of cash, a trial and error method where the success ratio is very low, e.g. polycyclic musks, 3) Rational odorant design. There are two theories of odour: 1) Molecular shape and 2) Molecular vibrations. Replacement of just one element in a molecule can completely change its shape. Musk ambrette, Civetone, Helvetolide and Galaxolide all have different shapes but smell musky. Typically, one molecule can vibrate in many vibrational modes, e.g. have 30, 40 or 50 vibrations. Tonkene was predicted from Coumarin: its pattern is different but there is a surprising overlap of vibrations: they are in sync. Flexitral now has various molecules on the market as a result of rational design based on the theory of odour by molecular vibration: molecules to replace: citral, HCA, Lyral, musk ambrette, MOC, isoeugenol, damascone and coumarin.
CREATING DREAMS, BRINGING
BACK THE MAGIC
Doreen Bollhofer, VP
Global Fragrance Development, Ralph Lauren Fragrances
A dream is a visionary creation of the
imagination, something that fully satisfies a wish, an inspiration. People
like Helena Rubenstein, Elizabeth Arden, Estee Lauder, as well as Steven
Spielberg and Bill Gates had an ability to dream, not just plan. Flooding
the market with fragrances has weakened the value of fragrance. Passion
is the most important ingredient, evoking memories, and marketers must
inspire the perfumers. Speed to market cramps perfumers’ creativity;
testing is only a tool, a red flag to signal a problem. There’s no
excitement in mediocrity, only greatness inspires. Ralph Lauren’s
vision: I am my consumer, I’m not just designing her dress, I’m designing
her world, things to own and keep and cherish. I want it, I love
it, I have to have it. The fragrances that have become classics have been
created by perfumers who dared to dare - and they’ve inspired copies.
Wednesday 6:30 - 8:30
pm
Cocktail party on
the Beach of the Hotel Majestic
© Copyright British Society of Perfumers 2004