This is the year of the deja vu fragrance.
To the tune of $200 million in estimated retail sales, the fragrance industry increasingly has been marketing what often are referred to as “flankers,” whether they fit the classic definition or not. Generally, these are new fragrances that are related to established brands. They share some element — often part of the name and the bottle shape — while brandishing a new juice and reaching for a new customer. The latest example is Miami Glow, a spin-off of Jennifer Lopez’s Glow.
This year, the flanker phenomenon reached new heights, so much so that it has begun to spark controversy. Fragrance suppliers, which are being squeezed financially by having to keep devising new submissions, often find them distasteful; perfumers decry the lack of creativity inherent in the practice. But retailers and manufacturers, which see the appeal of built-in consumer trust — and consequently greater and easier sales — can’t seem to resist them.
“The consumer trusts the original brand, so she’s more open to buying these scents,” Thia Breen, executive vice president of cosmetics for the Federated Merchandising Division, said last April. “And as a retailer, I love them. It takes all the hard work that we have done with manufacturers and extends the life cycles of many scents.” Among those that have done well for Breen: Ralph Lauren’s Romance Silver, Clinique’s Happy Heart, Estée Lauder’s Pleasures Intense and Elizabeth Arden’s Red Door Revealed.
NPD Beauty, a division of The NPD Group, which tracks consumer buying patterns, estimates that flankers have steadily gained a thickening sliver of the department store fragrance market from 2 percent in 2001 to an estimated 8 percent this year. NPD defines flankers as a new fragrance product, such as a lighter or summer version of an earlier entry that is launched to leverage the brand equity of the existing scent.
“Recent introductions, like Shalimar Light and Ralph Cool, are using this concept to reach a younger consumer,” said Maria Ianni, fragrance account manager of NPD Beauty. “Flankers can help build loyalty, usually with less advertising, and play on consumers’ familiarity. Similar to fashion, what is old eventually will become new again, as celebrity fragrances were able to reinvent themselves from the Elizabeth Taylor days. Interests will eventually fade in the next year or two, until the concept is reinvented once again.”
