Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 11, 1993 TAG: 9308110042
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"Man made trains to carry the heavy load,
"Man made electric lights to take us out of the dark . . . "
"Man made boat for water like Noah made the ark."
"It's a man's world," sings soul man James Brown in television commercials for "Zino," a new men's fragrance by Davidoff.
As Brown sings, model Eric Etebari climbs rock walls and dives from cliffs in New Mexico. The scenery is breath-taking.
It may sound as if it's about virility and sensuality, but it's mainly about business. Fragrances are an annual $4.8 billion industry based on retail revenues, says Annette Green, president of the Fragrance Foundation in New York.
Zino, touted as "the Fragrance of Desire," is one of about 40 new scents being introduced in 1993, each with launch budgets in the millions of dollars. A June story in Women's Wear Daily, a trade publication, estimated that Lancaster Group AG will spend $20 million this year to advertise the new Zino and its older brands, including Davidoff Cool Water, Joop! (pronounced yoop) and Jil Sander.
Ten of the 40 smells debuting are for men, a larger hunk than ever and growing faster than the women's fragrance category, Green said.
She said the flurry of new introductions are for customers who are more interested in "things that are new than things that are not new." Green said fragrances also are doing well because people have discovered the relationship of "odor and behavior, that aromas can reduce stress and make people more alert and more socially secure."
Besides, she said, the fragrance is "one of the few categories of products that is quite inventive and innovative."
We think of perfumes or eau de toilette in terms of French companies, but the industry has been dominated by American makers for more than a decade.
However, Green said, the French deserve credit for making the industry what it is. She said French companies started the foundation in 1949 and campaigned at women's club meetings and schools to get American women to wear fragrances.
Now more and more men are wearing them, although most products still are bought by women, even the ones intended for men.
That's the experience of D.L. Wooldridge, who runs the men's fragrance department at Hecht's in Roanoke, where Zino will be introduced Aug. 19. Hecht's is the fragrance's exclusive retailer in this area.
Wooldridge hasn't gotten a whiff of Zino yet because the product hasn't come in, but there should be plenty of opportunity for everyone to sniff it. In addition to the in-store campaigns, Zino scent strips are being inserted into 51 million September and October issues of such magazines as GQ and Vanity Fair, said the product publicist, Jennifer Cohan of Marilyn Evins Ltd.
This week Wooldridge is deep into plans for Thursday's launch of Minotaure by Paloma Picasso, which he says had a "citrusy, almost orange-blossom smell." He has samples, folks.
Zino and Minotaure have comparable prices, $35 to $37.50 for 2.5 ounces of eau de toilette spray. However, a Zino purchase is supposed to include free tickets to a James Brown concert. Three are planned; one each in New York and Chicago in early fall and another in Los Angeles later.
So, does a men's fragrance seller wear any?
Wooldridge said Balenciaga is his favorite fragrance, but because he has been working in colognes, he normally doesn't put on any at the beginning of the day.
"By the end of day, I have 15 colognes on me," he said. Multiple smells mean you don't get a true sense of any one of them, he said.
Wooldridge said the best way to really test a cologne is to spray some on the back of your hand, then walk around the store or mall for 15 minutes to allow the fragrance to mix with your body chemicals.
"Then wash your hand and come back and try another one," he said.
And one last bit of fragrance trivia: Jack Salzman, Goldman Sachs analyst who watches the fragrance industry, does "class and mass" rankings of fragrances based on a consumer survey. When Salzman's crew asked buyers what the top-ranking perfumes were, the consumers said:
Eternity for men and White Diamonds for women in the "class" or department store category; Stetson for men and Navy for women in the "mass" group.
\ In the "we-didn't-mean-to-do-that" department:
First Union mailed out Visa option letters to Dominion Bank Visa-cardholders recently, but didn't mean to send them to Premiere and Advantage customers as well. The latter category includes what the bank calls its "relationship customers," or those with several accounts. They will soon get another letter saying their Visa cards will carry 12.9 percent interest charges but no annual fee.
The options for customers with a lesser relationship are 12.9 percent and a $39 fee for a Gold card or 13.9 percent and a $25 fee for a standard card.
Also, to attempt to offset enticements other banks are offering for Visa cards, such as Signet's 8.9 percent through 1994 and $18 fee to new customers who want to transfer balances, First Union will give back 2 percent of any balance transferred to it by a new customer.
by CNB