The beauty image of fragrances and its behavior

Perfumes have evolved into a mainstream business in the cosmetics and personal care industry. From being non-essential, perfumes are now essentials, becoming part of pride, self-reliance, and confidence.

Perfumes have metamorphosed into a “feel good” factor, which complements the consumer’s need for expressing individuality, and personal style. The wide ranges of choices enable consumers to choose fragrances that complement respective personal and characteristic traits.

There is a diversity of notes:

•   Fresh Notes constituted into greens (often associated with the scents of the outdoors), aquatics (invoke the spirit of the sea or the smell of rain) and citrus (the juices of lemons, oranges, bergamot, grapefruit and mandarins)

•   Floral & Oriental Notes has a wide range of blooms, from a single rose petal to a medley of floral bouquets. The floral fragrances include floral orientals, eventually leading into the Oriental group with soft orientals with sweet and spicy notes.

•   Woody Notes consists of aromatic wood notes as sandalwood, cedarwood, oak.

Beyond those there are numerous combinations of notes that blur the fragrance lines.

A particular product scent must confirm the product performance and has a determining factor in the overall satisfaction enjoyed by the consumer when using the product. Indeed the quality of the products is more important than the price.

Thanks to the specialists we actually think that if we smell nice, we look nice. It gives us a particular feeling of confidence. It is in a way influenced by the trends of haute fashion, designers, music, and movie superstars making the market more attractive.

Today, women’s fragrances continue to dominate the market, they are the ones that buy the most these fragrances for any occasions as gifts for others and often as a gift for themselves. A situation that might change with men’s fragrance segment that is beginning to witness strong growth patterns with fragrances for each occasion. In the other hand, fine perfumes are looking further at the teenage segment as a potential market.

The packaging and the brand of the perfume can affect the purchase; it helps to make a decision but other factors are also into the decision process.

•   There is the color differentiation than can carry symbolic information; it is a good visual tool. For example, the green and blue for ‘clean/fresh’ colors and honey and brown for ‘warm’ colors.

•   The color is linked to the name of the product. Indeed, visual and verbal elements play a dominant role in shaping and encoding the product’s offering.

•   Then the odor is focused on the pleasantness of the odor, the arousing nature of the odor itself and its intensity or strength. It is associated with emotionally significant events and past experiences.

References:

- "L'image publicitaire des parfums", Julien Mariette (1997)

- "Femmes de parfum", M-Christine Grasse (1997)

- http://www.companiesandmarkets.com

- http://www.fragrantica.com/groups/

The Biggest Fragrance Producing Companies in the World- Hidden Champions of the Market

Did you ever wonder how many perfume and cologne brands are there on the market at this point in time? Well due to my research based on the quantity brands available on one of the popular online retailers specialized in fragrances there are 1272 different brands currently available to purchase online at http://www.fragrancex.com/products/allbrands.html.

Tremendous amount of  trademarks including prominent names like Chanel, Gucci, Hermes but also such items as 50 Cent, Jay-Z, Christina Aguilera, New York Yankees Perfume ( I wonder what does that smell like? Hotdogs?! :D), Harley Davidson and of course the famous Powerpuff Girls perfume.

Behind all of those scent brands are conglomerates, companies and big cash-cow businesses that enjoy producing, promoting, packaging and selling us the fragrances that we are supposed to instantly fall in love with. Interestingly enough the biggest worldwide companies that produce the essential ingredients apart from also producing the perfumes itself are not that well-known.

If you are interested in fashion, brands and brands families, you probably heard about companies like LVMH that own brands under their “umbrellas” in this case Dior, Givenchy, Fendi, Kenzo and so on, L’Oreal ( Lancome, Giorgio Armani, Yves Saint Laurent, Ralph Lauren Fragrances), Coty Inc. ( Calvin Klein Fragrances, Marc Jacobs Fragrances, Chloe, as well as Adidas and Playboy Fragrances).

It’s exciting to see companies who have licenses for so many brands to actively compete and apply all their marketing tricks to be able to differentiate between this or that perfume or cologne. Nevertheless, this article is not going to be about LVMH or L’Oreal but instead I would like to introduce you to those companies who are the real powers of the fragrance market, the hidden champions and big players holding all the scents to put in your brands (word play I know…I know :D ).

Giuvadan, Firmenich, IFF- are the top 3 companies producing the essential ingredients as well as providing services and cooperating with the perfume houses an in the process of creating their famous branded aromas (Fun Fact: 2/3 have their biggest producing facilities and offices in Grasse, south of France, just about 16 km away from where I’m sitting right now :D) Based on the ranking compiled by Leffingwell & Associates (http://www.leffingwell.com/top_10.htm) 

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Well, if you have never heard about this company is just about time you most likely should. As of 2008, Givaudan ((pronounced: [ʒivodɑ̃]) is global leading producer of flavorings and fragrances. (Leffingwell & Associates, 2014). Their market share in 2013 was estimated to be around 20.5% with sales figures of 4.9 billion U.S. Dollars. Even though the market share have dropped during the last 3—5 years no more or less than by 5%, Givaudan is still considered as the leader and an essential player in the world fragrance market. With valuable and important heritage, this Swiss company had created a lot of perfumes and colognes that are considered as classics. The company has been around for more than a century and every year it manages to produce new and breakthrough scents that are made into perfumes that charm and attract the masses.

All the biggest fragrance producing companies and Givaudan is not an exception work both with fashion houses, beauty companies, fashion designers, lifestyle brands, as well as with celebrities who what to transform their image into something more or less tangible as the perfume or a cologne. The art of those companies is to mix the art of a scent master with the innovative technology in order to produce a unique item that has multiple roles to perform including associating a person with a  particular lifestyle, making him/her feel better due to the better smell and so on and so forth. It’s a complicated piece of work if you ask me but the bottom line figures of the industry proves it is more than worth it.

Givaudan is the company that brought us one of the world’s most popular scents. From Je Reviens of Charles Worth and Shocking of Elsa Shiaparelli to L'Air du Temps, Fracas, Opium, Poison and Obsession. Currently, Giuvudan fragrances are in included in a lot of best-selling perfumes and colognes such as: Angel, Le Male, J’Adore, Infusion d’Iris, Armani Code, One Million and Lola.

“A Passion to Smell and Taste”- Firmenich tagline 
( http://www.firmenich.com/m/company/about-us/overview/index.lbl)

Another ofiginally Swiss grand company is Firmenich which is claimed to be largest privately-owned business in the perfume and flavor business (Firmenich Company Website, 2014). Just like Givaudan, Firmenich has been around for over 100 years and is known to be the company to create a number of popular perfumes in the course of its existence.

Firmenich worldwide known perfumers such as Annick Menardo, Illias Ermenidis, Jacques Cavallier, Jean-Pierre Bethouart and others are responsible for creation of several best sellers such as: Fuel for Life by Diesel, Gucci by Gucci, Intimately Beckham Woman as well as several perfumes for Armani, Marc Jacobs.

Based on figures presented on the company’s website Firmenich is a stable growing company producing great results year by year. At this point in time, Firmenich company group holds onto 14% of the world fragrance market and enjoys 7% average growth per year (since 1989 ). As of June 2014, the group turnover is around 2.95 billion Swiss Francs.

A 125 year old company, IFF formed as a merger of two Dutchman in a small town of Zutphen. Nowadays it is a leading global creator of flavors and aromas that are used in many consumer products around the world. There is no doubt that every one of us reading this piece of writing have at least once experienced the fragrance or flavors made by this company in this or that product or item. The core competencies claimed by IFF include “consumer insight, research & development, and creative expertise” and using those competencies, IFF is able to assist their customers and partners in driving and creating value and equity for their associated brands.

IFF is truly living up to its first part of the name. Meaning it is truly international having in its team more than 70 perfumers collaborating in New York, Paris, San Paulo, Shanghai, Singapore, and Grasse. IFF argues and I would claim proves the fact that they do indeed have “the talent, resources, and global reach to meet the demands of any customer in the world.” (IFF Company Website, 2014)

IFF in its turn is the company behind such fragrance legends as EsteeLauder’s Beautiful, Calvin Klein Euphoria, Lancome’s Tresor, Ralph Lauren’s Polo Blue and other. Nevertheless, IFF is also on the edge of producing new and breakthrough innovative fragrances included in the newest scents and top selling perfumes such as Givenchy's Very Irresistible L’Intense and Bulgari's Mon Jasmin Noir as well as Calvin Klein's Eternity Summer.

Additionally, International Flavors & Fragrance is the company that created a lot of innovative products and formulas used in numerous consumer items. One of such inventions is something called “Iso E Super” which is a perfume ingredient, providing a sandalwood-like and cedarwood-like fragrance  (Wikipedia Article on Iso E Super). Perfumes such as Kenzo Air, Hermes Terre, Fierce by Abercrombie & Fitch, Dior’s Fahrenheit more or less all of these perfumes and colognes include this chemically created fragrance.

There are numerous companies available and competing on the fragrance markets. Every year we see thousands of new scents coming out of their factories. Our job as customers and young marketers is to be able to appreciate the work of those hidden champions and take advantage of their innovative competencies and capabilities. On the other hand we need to work harder in order to differentiate and figure out what scents to include in our brands and how to point out and sell the uniqueness of the particular fragrance that will supposedly embody our brand image.

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References:

Fine Fragrances. (2014). Fragrances. Retrieved October 26, 2014, from http://www.givaudan.com/Fragrances

Fine Fragrances. (2014). Fragrances. Retrieved October 26, 2014, from http://www.givaudan.com/Fragrances

Firmenich  Company Profile > Facts & figures. (2014). Firmenich > Company > Profile > Facts & figures. Retrieved October 26, 2014, from http://www.firmenich.com/m/company/about-us/profile/facts-figures/index.lbl

Firmenich > Fragrances > Overview. (2014). Firmenich > Fragrances > Overview. Retrieved October 26, 2014, from http://www.firmenich.com/m/fragrances/overview/index.lbl

Flavor & Fragrance Industry - Top 10. (2014.). Flavor & Fragrance Industry - Top 10. Retrieved October 25, 2014, from http://www.leffingwell.com/top_10.htm

Givaudan. (2014, October 25). Wikipedia. Retrieved October 26, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Givaudan

IFF Fragrances :: Fine Fragrances. (2014). International Flavors & Fragrances. Retrieved October 26, 2014, from http://www.iff.com/fragrances/fine-fragrances.aspx

Iso E Super. (2014, October 24). Wikipedia. Retrieved October 26, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iso_E_Super

The History of Perfume

The story of fragrances and more precisely of perfume is inextricably linked to that of humanity.

Since the Antiquity, Greeks and Egyptians burned plants and resins. The word “perfume” came from the Latin word “per fumum” which means “by smoke”.

Picture of Egyptian women, 1300 BC - Afrique
from http://www.egodesign.ca/fr/article_print.php?article_id=601

At times and according the civilizations, perfume had different uses and so the techniques had evolved. Indeed, the Romans were very ingenious in creating new fragrances that they spread after on floors or walls, even on animals as horses or dogs.

Then, when the rise of Christianity had stopped the use of perfume in the Middle East, the Arabs preserved it and improved the distillation techniques thanks to the invention of the still and the discovery of ethyl alcohol.

Contrary to common beliefs, during the Middle Age, people are fond of washing and bathing. The pomander, a sort of perfume holder, is one of the best accessories to preserve musk, amber and perfumed oil.

Picture of a parcel-gilt silver pomander, 1550
from http://www.fragonard.com/parfums_grasse/FR/fragonard/histoire_du_parfum_et_fragonard/de_l_antiquite_au_moyen_age.cfm

Modern perfumery began in the late 19th century with the commercial synthesis of aroma compounds such as vanillin or coumarin. It has to be a very luxurious good with the first crystal bottles made by famous manufacturers such as Lalique or Baccarat.

François Coty is the first perfumer to use synthetic scents. The Guerlain House launched its first successful perfumes such as Shalimar since 1828.

In 1911, Paul Poiret was the first to create a perfume as supplement to his fashion line. But Coco Chanel made the difference in 1921 by launching Chanel n°5 with one of the first commercials: an illustration of the designer herself.

Picture of Chanel n°5 first commercial
from http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/features/scent-of-a-woman-how-does-chanel-stay-top-dog-in-the-perfume-world-1676219.html?action=gallery&ino=2

Fashion and perfume industries will keep very close ties since the industrialization and the acceleration of trade and development of brands.

References: 

http://parfums-tendances-inspirations.com/2010/11/08/100-ans-de-parfum-en-5-minutes/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfume
http://www.everythinkaboutperfume.com/history.html