ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, August 7, 1996 TAG: 9608070013
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B8 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Marketplace
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL
Next time you're standing in a grocery store line, or in the cafeteria at work, lean over and sniff the person standing next to you.
(But be subtle about it, please. You don't need to get a reputation as someone who walks around smelling her co-workers.)
Recognize the scent?
Unless it's the one you wear, probably not. There are literally hundreds of perfumes and colognes out there, with countless new introductions every year.
A study of department store fragrance sales released by The NPD Group Inc., a market research company, shows just how fragmented the smell-good market has become. The top seller for the first six months of 1996 was cKone, the unisex scent Calvin Klein introduced almost two years ago. But it captured not even 5 1/2 percent of the total market, said Timra Carlson, who heads up the BeautyTrends survey service for NPD.
To stand out in such a competitive market, fragrances need either a gimmick - such as a unisex label - or a memorable advertising and promotional campaign.
You probably remember, for instance, the hype surrounding the introduction of Elizabeth Taylor's Black Pearls a year ago. Taylor, upset that some of the more prestigious department store chains refused to carry the perfume, pulled the fragrance from the market. Customers raised a stink. She eventually reintroduced the scent with a marketing coup: The plotlines of all four CBS Monday night sitcoms revolved around Taylor and a mysterious strand of black pearls.
The result: Customers who were left clamoring for Black Pearls when it was pulled from the shelves returned to perfume counters in droves when it was reintroduced.
"Because there are so many scents out there and there are so many new introductions each year, the ones that capture the spotlight are the ones backed by promotions," Carlson said.
Hence all the free-with-purchase gift offers, ranging from your run-of-the-mill cosmetic bag filled with trial-size lotions and spritzes to Lancome's offer of a crusty French baguette.
Christian Dior has just launched a promotion to show off its newest scent, Dolce Vita, which isn't even for sale in stores yet. The design house has teamed up with Hecht's, which has sent some of its credit card customers letters offering a free sample of the perfume before its official launch date.
The success of many new fragrances also may be due to the fact that women's brand loyalty isn't very strong, especially relative to men's, Carlson said. The top 10 women's fragrances account for just 36 percent of dollar sales, according to NPD data, while the top 10 men's scents account for 57 percent.
"Our data confirm what you suspected all along," Carlson said. "Women simply like to try new scents. Women are always looking for that special scent, that special fragrance."
Not so their male counterparts. "Men, if they find something they like, they tend to stick with it," she said. Could be a sign of the male aversion to shopping, she said. But NPD doesn't have any statistics yet to tell us just who buys men's fragrances - whether men buy for themselves or women buy the scents for them.
In the next year or so, we can expect to see more unisex fragrances ride cKone's coattails into the market.
Women who prefer clean, woodsy scents to heady floral ones have been dousing themselves with men's fragrances - Christian Dior's Eau Sauvage, Giorgio for Men, Armani by Giorgio Armani - for years. And unisex fragrances are nothing new in Europe. And American men finally are becoming more open to the idea of wearing the same fragrances their wives or girlfriends may use.
"There are other manufacturers out there that are looking to capitalize on the success that cKone has experienced," Carlson said. Even Calvin Klein hopes to build on its genderless success with a second male-or-female scent, cKBe (as in "Be Good ... Be Bad ... Just Be").
In the Leggett store in Valley View Mall, clerks already are taking names of people who want to buy the new Calvin Klein scent. The store will send postcards when the shipment arrives. Monday, there were nearly 30 names on the list.
Cindy Carter, who works in Leggett's fragrance department, said cKone sold out last Christmas. She thinks the new Calvin Klein fragrance will be even more popular.
"The boom hasn't let up yet," Carter said.
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: graph - Top Five Fragrances color STAFF KEYWORDS: MGRby CNB