How to Create a Niche Fragrance Blockbuster
What is better than falling in love, winning the state lottery or finally seeing your kids move out?
Correct – that one thing would be creating a blockbuster niche fragrance (not a fad driven by aggressive marketing, but a true long-lived cult hit). Nothing is more rewarding than that, but also nothing is harder than creating a blockbuster intentionally.
To start, it is easy to create something unique and unusual, but it is hard to predict if an idea will resonate with others. For that, you have to drop your ego and detach from your own tastes, which is no simple task.
Next, for a fragrance to gain popularity, it must be both unique and pleasant. However, there are only so many pleasant-smelling combinations of ingredients, and the more fragrances are launched, the more difficult it becomes to avoid repeating existing scents.
To make things worse, almost every conceivable idea, theme, or metaphor that brand owners turn to when trying to create daring concepts (love, style, status, sex/lust, hedonism, coziness, drugs, exotic places, urban minimalism, gothic romanticism, space, history, religion – to name a few) has been exploited multiple times. When someone tries to deviate from them, they often come up with concepts that aren’t simple and powerful enough to resonate. There is definitely a crisis of ideas in perfumery, and with every year, things are only getting worse.
In the whole universe of possible smells, both existing and non-existing, replicating the success of staple niche fragrances of the last two decades may not be possible anymore just because of the life cycle of the niche fragrance category as a whole and how saturated and fragmented the market has become. With that said, here are some strategies that still work:
- Introducing a new olfactory category
A few examples include the hyper-sweet gourmands genre started by Mugler, western ouds pioneered by Montale and popularized by Nasomatto, abstract “molecular” fragrances introduced by Escentric Molecules, the carnal/animalic genre and modern chypres with significant contributions from brands like Zoologist, Papillon, Bortnikoff, Areej Le Doré, and others.
Here, if you are bold enough to launch something that doesn’t have a market yet, you may have to wait years after launch for the right time to come, for consumers to accept the new category, and for the category pioneer to become a hit. This is what happened to Mugler’s Angel and a few other landmark fragrances that started new categories or trends.
For Escentric Molecules, the time was likely right from the start, as minimalism as a general trend had already begun to penetrate different aspects of life. Although, a big caveat here is that this brand used a range of other smart marketing tactics as well. For example, turning the preconception that synthetic molecules make fragrances bad quality upside down and promoting interest in aromachemicals by highlighting their unique ability to blend with each wearer’s skin chemistry in a unique way (remember those “Test on skin only!” warnings in stores?).
Besides finding or waiting for the right time, you may also need to find the right geography to focus on to accelerate category adoption. For example, the initial success of Escentric Molecules, Nasomatto, By Kilian, and some other brands in Eastern Europe seems to have contributed a lot to their subsequent global growth and the growth of their niche.
- Finding a new way to convey the essence of an existing popular category (e.g., finding an unexpected set of notes to convey freshness, darkness, sweetness, or sexiness of skin smell)
The key here is to ensure the scent still delivers on the category promise (e.g., makes one feel clean or mysterious, evokes associations with delicious desserts or intimate moments).
- Applying an innovative approach to formulation that shifts the paradigm of fragrance creation. We won’t speculate on what a “new thing” could be, but a few examples of what has been done in this area include:
Escentric Molecules’ single-molecule approach to formulation,
fragrances with a massive overdose of a specific ingredient that, albeit arguably, contributed to their success (Ambroxan in Dior Sauvage, Iso E Super in Terre d’Hermes, etc.), or
compositions that diverge from the traditional “fragrance pyramid” and conventional roles of certain notes – for instance, a very strong citrusy fragrance with great longevity (e.g., Tygar by Bvlgari, Vol d’Hirondelle by LM Parfums, etc.)
- Creating an innovative key accord
We don't like the analogy between fragrances and music but can't refrain from it here. In music, there is melody and there is sound, and it’s important to differentiate between the two. Mainstream music consumers are likely to get hooked by a catchy melody; melody is what makes a song a hit. At the same time, music addicts may be attracted to sound (e.g., physically vibrating base notes of the concert sound, 3D sound effects, etc.) as they appreciate the nuances, the quality of performance. A lot of the newer niche music styles focus on sound rather than melody.
In perfumery, if you want to appeal to a small group of connoisseurs, you can focus on the structural effects – the depth and volume of smell and the seamlessness of transitions brought by a skillful combination of ingredients (the “sound”). But if you want to create a hit, you will likely need to expand the target to include less involved consumers (even within the niche segment) and find that catchy “melody”.
A few examples of such accords are spicy sandalwood in Santal 33, medicinal candyfloss in Baccarat Rouge, earthy rose in Portrait of a Lady, raspberry leather in Tuscan Leather, powdery incense in L’Air du Desert Marocain. The key characteristic of such accords is simplicity and replicability – they have a very distinct smell, consumers use a consistent set of descriptors when referencing them, and it is easy for other perfumers to put together something similar, even from a different set of ingredients.
Finding such combinations is very difficult but also something we believe young brands should pursue in their R&D efforts and incorporate into their creative process.
- Incorporating an innovative molecule (e.g., Ambroxan, Javanol, or a more recent example - Akigalawood) or a group of molecules (think aldehydes, amberwood molecules, etc.) that has the potential to start a new trend
Obviously, only big fragrance houses have resources for discovering them, but whoever is the first to use (and sometimes promote) a new ingredient has real chances to launch a bestseller.
In this case, molecules that have revolutionary potential are mostly used in a supportive capacity rather than as building blocks in fragrances. They create structural effects that often work at a subconscious level. For example, both sandalwood molecules, Ambroxan, and the like, and molecules imitating oud are often responsible for the elusive effect of warm skin or even slight body odor.
