In Fragrance, What's Weird is Winning
In recent weeks, the luxury industry has been hit by rough turbulence, a series of major corporations reporting disappointing earnings. Yet not all is doom and gloom – there are clear bright spots, and one of the brightest is the ever-growing luxury fragrance segment. Just look at LVMH and Kering – while their overall portfolios slipped, their beauty brands shot up 3% and 7%. Last week, Puig reported they’d beat Q3 expectations with 11% growth.
But how do brands get in on this growth, and sell fragrances that truly resonate for consumers? A new generation of fragrance fans are here, from Africa to China to the US, and they’re reinventing the marketing norms of a $67 billion global industry.
Global fragrance brands have never been so niche. You might be now asking ‘what is a niche brand?’ and we’d answer today that ‘niche’ is actually the new way of reaching the masses.
Many of the fragrance brands usually defined as ‘niche’ – like BYREDO, Frederic Malle, Serge Lutens – are today owned by major conglomerates. Likewise, many ‘designer’ brands increasingly feel niche, like CELINE, because across the industry, the thriving fragrance brands today are taking a page from the storytelling playbook that made niche perfumes thrive in the first place.
In an e-commerce world, where you can’t smell digitally, shopping for fragrance relies on storytelling more than ever. Fragrantica, the go-to database for ‘fragheads’, catalogs nearly 100,000 scents – in order to stand out, you need exceptionally strong, niche storytelling. Because the kind of storytelling that will work moving forward is also notable for how specific and unique it is.
On TikTok, influencers preach about how to ‘smell expensive,’ rattling off perfumes ‘that scream #OldMoney’. Not only do fragrances need unique storytelling today – they need to be able to also slot into the preferred dreams and aspirations of consumers.
Perfumes – and candles – today spotlight increasingly inventive and wild notes like blood, concrete, and ink. D.S. & DURGA, a true niche brand, recently released a very Al Dente-relevant candle based around the idea of ‘Pasta Water.’ Diptyque Paris, the OG niche brand, utilized synesthesia to capture the scent of coral and mother of pearl for their new ‘Les Essences’ collection. One of the most viral mainstream perfume ads in recent years, over at Burberry, featured Adam Driver turning into a centaur.
Increasingly, successful fragrance brands are telling a multi-faceted story – ‘sex sells’ is not enough anymore, neither are celebrity endorsements. Today we’re seeking out perfumes to fulfill a multitude of niche desires: entertainment, comfort, a way of acting out detailed aspirations – potentially all at once. It’s time to roll up our sleeves, and get a little weird.
