A look into the Perfume Industry | youTHUNDER
For the Market and New Media Research Lab by ADandPRlab, we decided as a team to do an extensive research on the perfume industry, in order to inspect the preferences and the details of the field.
After having a first look on the industry, we found out that its’ yearly market growth is 5.5%, while some of its’ biggest players are Estee Lauder, L’oreal and Shiseido. A SWOT Analysis of the field showed that the biggest strengths are the frequent use and demand of the perfumes, and some weaknesses would be the change of preferences of the consumers, also depending on the trend of the times, and the difficulty for a brand to “make a mark” on the market, since the competition is huge. An opportunity for the field to expand is the increase that is shown for the use of personal care products, such as perfumes, while some threats to the industry are the fake/ alternate products, and also the change to more cruelty-free, organic products, which could also be an opportunity for some ideas to develop.
After concluding this first research, we went on to create two personas depending on two very different brands of perfumes, that communicate very differently and to very diverse target groups. These brands are BU and Chanel. The persona for BU would be a young, teenage girl, who is a student with a lot of friends. She has a lot of hobbies, while also having a small budget. On the other hand, the persona for Chanel is a more mature woman in her 40s, who is independent, living a vivid, social life. She cares about her appearance and status, and that’s why she buys brands and has a high budget.
After creating these two personas, we had to take a deeper look into the variety of perfumes that exist, in order to see their differences and their common characteristics, to notice any existing patterns. This is why we categorized the perfumes, depending on the patterns we noticed, and specifically depending on whether they have a light or heavy smell, or whether they are tempting- seducing or more floral-fruity.
Then, we occurred a focus group of 5 people and we displayed the most interesting answers of our participants, all of which were 19–25 years old. Thus, in the question “How do you feel when you go out without any perfume?” we were surprised to see that they described the experience as if “they go out naked”. Additionally, our focus group participants strongly supported that they connect people with specific perfumes and that was something that we expected, because in many cases perfumes can play games with our minds or even seduce us. Furthermore, a lucky find of our research was the one that arose from the question “What perfume do you wear this period?”. Participants seemed to remember the name of the perfume, if it was a famous one that became a best seller, otherwise they either mentioned just the brand where it belongs or the perfume name accompanied by the brand name. For example, one member of our focus group just answered “the Good Girl”, whereas another answered “Si of Armani”.
Afterwards, we apposed some interesting results of the questionnaire we conducted online. We amassed 97 answers deriving from women, as we decided to specifize our target audience, since our two personas depend on two different women brands of perfumes, BU and Chanel. First of all, what came out was that the audience of the perfume industry goes to extremes. The vast majority of our respondents answered that they do not change perfume often, whereas the second most popular answer was that they do not have a specific perfume. By this we understood that specific perfume brands either have a really loyal audience or a totally occasional one.
Our team also created an infographic with some interesting questionnaire findings. To be more specific, the top three consuming reasons in the perfume industry are smell, confidence and the desire to be associated with a specific perfume brand. (creation of an identity) Furthermore, the three perfumes that come firstly to the users’ minds are the Good Girl of Carolina Herrera, Channel (the brand in general, which again affirms what we noticed above) and Si of Armani. However, opposed to this, what came out from the question “With which perfumes are you familiar with?” the top three most popular answers where Channel, Dior, Armani. As a consequence, these three brands seem to have built a really strong name in perfume industry and this can be considered as a success.
After concluding this research on the perfume industry in general, and specifically on the brands BU and Chanel, we came to the realization that Chanel is considered a very likeable brand because of its brand value, while it’s receiving negative feedback when it comes to the price. BU, on the other hand, is receiving very positive feedback about its’ price, but the value of the brand is not considered very high.
youTHUNDER team:
Maria Zioga
Amanda Linara
Ιριάνα Νίκα
Δήμητρα Κιοϊλόγλου
Theodora Fokaeos
Evangelia Kyrkou
@GeraliEri
Professors of ADandPRLab:
Dimitra Iordanoglou
Betty Tsakarestou
Ioannidis Kostas
#ADandPRLab #MNMRLab #Perfumes #BU #Chanel
