Developing a Fragrance Brand

I don't think I've really spoken about the latest project that much so I thought it was about time I did...

My current Uni project is to create a new innovative fragrance brand, that offers something completely new and exciting to the fragrance market. When I heard about this brief I was a little unsure what I thought about it, especially as I signed up to do a fashion course not a fragrance one. After doing the project for the last couple of months, I can finally say I've got into it & surprisingly it's my favourite project so far.

Coming up with a brand is not as easy as you'd think.... I never imagined how hard it would be to come up with something new that the market hasn't ever seen before. I mean where do you start?

Initially we decided to go down the festival fragrance route because it was an idea that really got all of us excited about where we could take it. But we'd massively over complicated things and we lost track of the actual task. So each member of the team went away and thought about other ideas we could use instead, which is how we ended up at 'an around the world fragrance'.

We thought it was an interesting idea that brings the 7 continents of the world together, especially with the numerous cultural differences we see in the world today. As we didn't want to do just a standard fragrance we thought we'd target it at men because this sector of the fragrance market isn't as overcrowded as the female market.

So our brand?

‘Profectionem’ is the Latin name for the word ‘Departure’. Opting for the Latin pronunciation adds a more sophisticated, grown up feel to the scent, making it more desirable to own.

Within our brand there is 7 different fragrances, each representing the 7 different continents in the world. Each scent can be purchased individually or as the full collection. As well as having a continent name on each bottle, it will have a prominent city name from each of those continents too, making it easier for consumers to repurchase a particular favourite scent should they wish to.

The bottles will be labelled as followed:

•North America- NYC

•South America- Brazil

•Antarctica

•Europe- Amsterdam

•Asia- Thailand

•Africa- Egypt

•Australia- Sydney

Because we're not just creating a brand we're telling a story too, our story is that “Wanderlust is a luxury. Luxury is exclusive. Memories are extensive. Scent is beautiful. Our product is about making everyday as good as your last, wherever in the world that maybe". This is kinda our tag line because it will feature a lot in the video and on the advert, it says who we are as a brand without telling the consumer too much & it leaves them wanting more.

Personality & positioning a the brand is key when it comes to promoting it, targeting the early twenty something man, someone with a disposable income who would be willing to invest into the collection as a whole purchase. Considering their age they still have a massive desire to travel but have not necessary had the time to do so what with work commitments. Our product allows you to travel the 7 continent of the world with your sense of smell. As well as being there to offer memories to those continents the consumer may have travelled to. ”Men are more likely to invest into a product if it means they don’t have to make a repurchase as often”.

Currently on the market there are no other fragrances that offers the 7 different scents of the world. Gap in the market.

The colour palette of our brand is kept minimal. Using tones of monochrome and an electric blue. This immediately indicates to the target consumer that it is a masculine fragrance as these colours are stereotypically linked to the male gender.

When researching double exposure photoshoots the colour palette is mainly black and white due to the fact this creates contrast between the two images.

Our target audience, is predominantly men who like to live the life of luxury but they don’t like to care too much. Which is why purchasing all 7 scents as a collection is perfect for them! As they don’t have to invest too much time in looking for the singular ’perfect’ scent as they have 7 to choose from.

As mid-twenty something male with a disposable income it is likely they have little time to spend fragrance shopping, spent smelling lots of generic scents. We are completely different, offer a rich, luxurious, manly product that not only demonstrates they impeccable wealth but their taste too.

‘CB I Hate Perfume’ would be our biggest competition as their main ethos is “People who smell like everyone else disgust me”. Obviously they create unusual scents that have equally as unusual names. However they are extremely expensive (in the £100 mark) for just one fragrance whereas we’d sell 7 fragrances for £200. Yes our product would be a substantial investment if purchasing the entire collection but long term works out better value.

This is still a largely underpopulated sector of the male fragrance market therefore there are big gaps.