Why Most Fragrance Copy Caps Demand – and What to Do About It
With the economy in flux, the fragrance market is feeling the strain. The shift is bringing an itchy question back to the surface: amid the gloom, just how big can this market really get?
In niche fragrance, the answer is surprisingly flexible. TAM and SAM aren't defined by objective ceilings, but rather by what people choose to prioritize. Is your next splurge the latest Apple Watch or that perfume you've been obsessing over in the past… few hours? You could say the market is a tiny slice of disposable “fun money” – or you could check out any niche perfume lover’s fragrance closet and argue it’s all of it, or more.
So, how exactly do you stretch it? How do you make people sacrifice their whole wallet for that one night with your perfume? You do it with branding. And with words… that don't just describe a scent, but inflate desire, often to unreasonable levels. So you’d better choose your words carefully, and here are a few principles to follow.
The Don’ts.
Don’t be too literal. Want to say a fragrance evokes specific emotions or elevates mood? Don’t bluntly state “it evokes emotions and elevates mood” and hope people believe it. Want it to feel rebellious? Don’t label it “a perfume for rebels”. You can’t simply assign a mood or vibe to a fragrance and expect it to work – you need to create that mood or vibe. Ideas should be projected and picked up on, not spelled out.
Don’t cram “cultural trends” or externally imposed themes into the product copy, particularly those framed through a Western lens – when you target a global consumer. These are obvious from a mile away.
Avoid cliché words and phrases. That alone will already make your copy sound refreshing.
Avoid empty abstractions. Texts that are overly metaphysical, descriptions with no tangible meaning, attaching pompous adjectives to every noun when the combination makes no sense. If a description cannot be clearly imagined or understood, cut it.
The Dos.
Use the right type of copy. There are different styles of writing – sensorial, atmospheric, poetic, intellectual, narrative, humorous, shock-value, functional. They all appeal to different segments of perfume lovers.
Some enjoy being mentally challenged, others are tired of non-stop thinking and want to escape into the sensory realm where their mind is silent.
Some want to engage with the outside world, project and get validation, others seek to tune out and get lost.
Some are drawn to emotional rupture, others find intensity uncomfortable.
Some like it practical, others like it surreal.
As a brand, you need to have a crisp idea of what you lead with and who you are trying to persuade – and match your copy to that. Different copywriters are great at some styles and terrible at others. You need to find the right one. And sometimes, it’s worth letting them own the narrative and style, without endless back-and-forth, provided they can explain the strategy behind their creative choices.
Describe the core scent profile in one sentence. Instead of meticulously describing how a fragrance unfolds over time through a long-winded anatomy of top and base notes, try to fit the core idea into a short sentence. “It smells like”, not “It smells like this and that and also this”. Long descriptions rarely increase conversion, but often increase cognitive friction. Most people, especially newcomers to a brand, don’t enjoy them. Moreover, the three-stage scent progression breakdown doesn’t actually help them understand what type of fragrance it is or whether it’s their cup of tea.
Inject a powerful association. Forget what we said before: if you can nail this one thing, you can get away with a bit of vagueness, a confused sense of audience, clichés, and even cultural trends. Powerful associations are often the reason why some brands scale irrationally and deliver non-linear returns in brand equity.
Seriously though, we need to add a disclaimer here. It’s hard to analyze or reverse-engineer what clicks – what different people find intriguing, romantic, or safely taboo. People have very different emotional anchors, often formed in early childhood and adolescence, that are hard to detect and hard to predict. What one person will find romantic and thrilling, another will find boring or cringeworthy. It’s all deeply subjective, which is why this part is so hard. You are walking a razor’s edge here, but if you do it right, you hit the jackpot.
