Fragrance Industry News: Big Brands, Niche Players and Celebrities

The perfume industry is going through different phases and looking into the developments, what with the mergers, acquisitions, take-overs and profit reports, as well as the perfume best-sellers lists, is always interesting in its own way. According to the latest reportage there are news in what concerns big players and the continuing growth of niche in the market segmentation.

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As per the BBC news, "Coty - the New York beauty brand behind famous names such as Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs, Gucci, Hugo Boss and Chloe - has faced headwinds this year.
In August, it reported a surprise quarterly loss that was partly blamed on "materially" higher marketing costs for the launch of new fragrances, including Gucci Bloom and Hugo Boss Tonic.
L'Oreal, which sells fragrances under brands including Yves Saint Laurent, Ralph Lauren and Diesel, also reported disappointing sales and profits for its most recent quarter." 

It's interesting to note one particular detail which might be explaining the differentiation of niche in practical terms for consumers.

Again according to BBC News, "[market research firm]Mintel estimates UK sales will be worth about £1.5bn this year, making it the fifth-biggest market globally behind Brazil, the US, Russia and France. As with other retail sectors, she says one of the problems is savvy consumers who try out products in a physical store but then go online to buy it for less." 

Niche perfumes by default offer less sampling opportunities in store and they also have different sales practices regarding shop distributions and to the sales bonuses of the sales assistants pushing them.

The data for the celebrity fragrances however seems contradicting. One source (Mintel to be precise) "releasing a fragrance emblazoned with the name of a celebrity, such as Britney Spears, Beyonce or Jennifer Lopez - appears to be waning. A third of consumers describe this approach as tacky."
The Washington Post cites that sales of celebrity scents "have dropped by half since 2000, while luxury perfumes have seen a recent sales increase of 16 percent, bringing them to a record high".  There is nevertheless the counter argument.

In an Allure article touting the quality of many celebrity fragrances (and indeed we have shared a bit of the love, when deserved, on these very pages) there will always be a place for celebrity scents. "We experience them not as people, but as products, ingesting whatever song, photo, or product they choose to release. They are not so much revealing themselves to us, but continuing to build the character they are projecting themselves to be. We are falling in love with someone we will never know.
In that way, celebrity fragrances are different than scents from the big houses — the Armanis and Chanels. While brand loyalty is certainly a factor in what helps fragrances from the big guys fly off of the shelves every season (not without the help of a celebrity as the face of the brand and scent) celeb scents tap into a different part of our psyche." and concluding "the trend of celebrity fragrances will only completely die out when our collective obsession with celebrity does — which is to say, not any time in the near future."

Worth keeping in mind.

Why Are Celebrity Perfumes Still Popular?

Back a while ago I really thought the trend for celebrity scents (i.e.scents coat-tailing on the success of a celebrity brand name to which they're designed as an accessory) was dying. Boy, was I wrong! There are more celebrity scents coming out each season and it stands to reason people must be actually buying all this stuff for the companies to keep churning out more and more. (The latest, Nicole, comes from Nicole Richie who credits her mother's layering of a hundred scented products as its inspiration, which is scary sounding enough). But WHY are they?

"Like their wearers, these fragrances are not sophisticated, nor are they complicated. In fact they are scented with the same formulae used in shampoos and deodorant body sprays, according to perfume evaluator Erica Moore of Michael Edwards Fragrances of the World. ''They're immensely popular and very successful,'' she says. ''They're affordable. They've brought fine fragrance to a market that is not sophisticated.'' Moore says young women find their fragrance style by experimenting with these types of perfumes. But they also want a bargain.

 ''Parallel market'' fragrances are flourishing, according to beauty market analyst Jo-Anne Mason. ''It's dumped stock and coming in really cheap,'' she says. ''It's a grey market. It is legal. They're buying it out of Dubai. It could have been sitting there in a hot, unairconditioned warehouse for a year. (Cosumers) don't know; they don't think about it - they just look at the price.''

 Quotes from a longer article on the Sydney Morning Herald

And on to YOU to discuss in the comments:
 Do you find that you had been attracted by these scents when you were younger and have moved on? Do you find that there are exceptions to every rule and you have found a celebrity scent to claim your own? Does associating a perfume composition which sounds intriguing with a celebrity name crush your hopes for interesting juice? Or not?

 Hearing you out in the comment section!