"Consumers choose by brand not scent". Really?

“Consumers choose based on brand, not scent” is a sentence I hear often in conversations, particularly with retailers. There is a "black-or-white" approach to this dogmatic view that means one option excludes the other. It′s almost blasphemy.. if you focus on the scent it means you are against brands. ... as if we could not nurture brands and speak about scents at the same time!.

This view is zero consumer-centric.

A couple of thoughts to open the discussion (from a brand lover, myself)….

1.?SCENT is the key topic WHEN CONSUMERS RATE A PRODUCT. If we add all scent-related topics, then it′s over 70% of the conversation (see a useful statistic from more than 800K reviews collected by Revuze below). If Brand was the most important criterion, then consumers would talk about the brand (how cool it is, the ad they′ve seen) and not about the smell, which type of fragrance it is, whether is long-lasting, the fragrance strength, whether it is refreshing.. etc.

Sourze: Revuze sentiment analysis, 880,237 consumers verified reviews (USA, UK)

2.?If PERFUMERIES ARE ORGANIZED BY BRANDS .. what else can be the criteria for navigating products in a perfumery? If you organized by colour then consumers would ask for the “blue bottles” section.

Net, if SCENT is so important and yet we organize stores by BRANDS.. then let′s make sure perfumeries have super well-trained beauty advisors and tools in place for consumers to make the perfect choice taking into account also scent criteria. This applies to brand stores also. Interesting view of 香奈儿 on scent discovery at their own flagships (and it does not get much more "Brand centric" than Chanel)

The wine industry has found a simple solution for consumers to navigate assortments. Products are organized by brands but categorized in concepts that are very simple to understand and meaningful for consumers (country of origin, type, family).

Fran?ois Chartier adds this interesting example: "In the world of wines, in Quebec, the State Monopoly (the SAQ), created more than ten years ago a classification system (Taste tags / Pastilles de go?t) of wines (as well as spirits) by the aromatic profile and the structure in the mouth which had crazy success with the amateurs (especially the beginners). Thus, a large part of the wines, in all of its 400 branches, are classified not by wine region, but by their style, thus their taste tags, which have reassured the consumer and allowed him to discover wines he would never have dared buy!?The perfume industry should take inspiration from this." https://www.saq.com/en/all-taste-tags#vins

Daniel Plettenberg , a brilliant researcher nails it in a comment to this post: "In consumer research we found out that the trigger for buying a perfume (for oneself) is often a reward or a treat for something that was accomplished, a stressful time, the urge to do something good for you. So, the perfume needs to do two things: have a great scent, but also have emotional value. We tested the appeal of identical scents packed one as a well known premium brand and one as an unknown niche brand. And our respondents found the emotional benefit with the premium brand version much higher. The scent of the premium package was valued to be smoother and finer in composition, while the scent in the niche package was seen as a bit more rough and daring... So, a perfume is not just bought because of the scent, but also to fulfill emotional needs and the premium brand can do this better: "Oh I bought myself a nice Chanel scent!" And a brand has a halo on how a scents perceived :-)"

I would love to hear your views on this topic as retailers, brands or consumers.

#perfumery #scentdescription #consumercentric #revuze #fragrancesoftheworld #wikiparfum #airparfum