Marketing rare fragrances by remaining true to their brand image

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Marketing rare fragrances by remaining true to their brand
image should not be a struggle in a global luxury industry. But is
travel-retail upholding these products’ premium status successfully?
Jessica Harvey finds out
A
high quality perfume is like a little black dress
– a timeless classic that will suit a woman for life.
As computerised advancement rules many a day, the
demand for rare, vintage and prestigious brands has
surged once again. These products are the antidote
to a synthetic world.
One of the first English
perfume houses, Grossmith, which draws from
its original 19th century
formulations, has a rich
and compelling heritage.
“In the early 1900s Grossmith was awarded Royal
Warrants by the British,
Greek and Spanish Royal
Families,” says Grossmith
Limited managing director
Simon Brooke. This level
of authenticity has become paramount in terms
of how rare and premium
fragrances are marketed.
Consumers are looking for something unique and
many have become interested in provenance and
are looking for something real, pure and nostalgic
as a natural alternative to the deluge of high street
brands available. Brooke refers to this trend as a
| frontier November/december 2009
“reaction to mass market brands”, noting that “this
creates a fragrance proposition for a type of woman
who wants something that is uniquely hers” as well
as following the “trend for hand-crafted, artisanal
products created by skilled craftsmen.”
Similarly, French perfumer
Rancé, which has a 400-year-old
dynasty and began with perfumed
gloves for the French aristocracy, went on to develop some
of the world’s most eminent fragrance brands to cater for women
who were looking for something that was not available to
everyone everywhere.
As part of the consumer
desire for authentic brands,
“travel-retail has also decided to
pick up the momentum for the
‘Perfumes d’ Exception’,” says
Rancé international development
director Patrick Pace, adding that
“consumers of the domestic markets, or the passenger/travellers, want to be offered
‘something else’ and not only ‘me too brands’ to be
found everywhere.”
Pace adds that “The Nuance Group has been
the pioneer in [this] marketing trend and has
(Left) Perfumes
by Rancé; (below
and above right)
Grossmith;
(right) Ajmal
successfully implemented it at Singapore airport,”
noting that the “test has proven to be so positive
that other airport locations of Nuance are to develop the same concept. In
Europe, Munich Airport has
also gone for it with satisfying
results.” Rancé prides itself on its relationship with
Nuance and is extremely
grateful to have found Nuance and Munich Airport
duty-free group, which Pace
says has “pragmatically taken
advantage of this excellent
business opportunity”.
But Pace explains that the
value of a prestige brand is
something not understood by
everyone. Indeed, some travel-retail operators are still apprehensive about fragrances
that do not fit in with other
typical fashion-led scents.
“We do know that some
of the duty-free operators,
even some giants, are still ‘scared’ and prefer to keep
selling only commercial brands,” says Pace, but adds
that Rancé “will wait without pushing them until
they realise that they need to
offer something different and are missing out on
business revenues.”
Whilst explaining this,
Pace reminds us that to damage a supremely regarded
brand image by marketing
it alongside widely available
mainstream EdTs could actually deliver elite perfume
houses a greater disservice
than reduced presence. “At
Rancé we are keen on developing such projects in
airport shops or on board
cruising liners as long as the
concessionaire understands
fully that a noticeable exposure must be given to us,
preferably in a dedicated section for rare brands,”
says Pace, adding that “if the concessionaire cannot
be the guardian of our brand integrity, we prefer
not to sell our array of products and be mixed with
other brands of perfumes [that are] more fashionorientated. With Rancé, under no condition [can we]
trade ourselves down and go for a cherry-picking
merchandising technique.”
Brooke seconds this with regard to the Grossmith brand, reiterating that “attention to detail is
of the utmost importance to the development and
marketing of the brand, to reflect its luxury positioning,” adding that “pure ingredients” and “distinctive
packaging” are also crucial to reinforcing the
message of its quality.
Another luxury fragrance that has been gathering interest from high-end
stores is the Ajmal brand,
which started off as a single commodity trade outfit
dealing primarily in Oudh
and its derivatives. At Ajmal
– now a multi-million dollar
company – the philosophy
for upholding its image of
quality is to invest in highlytrained beauty consultants
to “ensure the maximum
brand knowledge is transferred to each consumer that
is looking to purchase our
product,” says Ajmal Perfumes deputy general manager Abdulla Ajmal. “The
idea is to arm the consumer
with adequate knowledge to
make the most informed decision,” he adds, thereby restoring faith in the consumer to remain discerning
enough to uphold a brand’s status and never regard
it as mainstream. “It is the audience that gives these
fragrances critical acclaim
within their select circle.
These consumers know
what they are on the lookout for and it is important
to target these individuals
through means that are
common to them. [If] niche
consumers [are] attracted
to a particular brand, it will
be their choice for as long
as the brand keeps delivering products that match
their expectations.”
Travel-retail is an ideal
location for rare fragrances
because it offers something
that even upscale department stores cannot – a global luxury marketplace
with a diverse cross-section of captive consumers.
Grossmith “appeals to the international traveller as
she discovers the brand in exclusive destinations that
form part of her world,” says Brooke, adding that
the retail distribution “reinforces the heritage of the
brand, built on discovery of evocative exotic places.
Echoing the glamour and drama of the ‘Grand Tour’
in Victorian days, available to a cultured elite.”
With this in mind, travel-retail operators in general might do well to recognise the wider benefits of
marketing rare brands in the way that they require,
rather than simply shoe-horning them into the mix.
This is a luxury industry, after all. n
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