A Wren Says

In honor of National Fragrance Day, let’s think about the journey it takes to make a fragrance. Because whether it is a bottle of perfume, body wash, or even laundry detergent, there was an entire process to get the item to smell the way it does. And trust me, it didn’t start with what smelling everything that smells good. To do this, we’ll go on a fictional journey.

Let’s say you are an indie clothing brand and want to start offering candles for sale in your stores and your online shop. Your brand is edgy but approachable, your customers are trendsetters. How do you capture that in a smell? And more importantly, how do you make sure it’s a scent that people love and will want to buy? The answer those questions, like so many on this blog, is marketing. More specifically, you will need to do your market research.

If you want to create something profitable, before you even start thinking about what smells nice, you need to ask yourself some key questions. What are your business needs that are driving you want to make a candle at all? What do you know about your target consumer? What do you know about overall trends in the market? Do your competitors have fragrance products? Are there any social or cultural trends you can tap into? What is the economy doing? Do people even burn candles anymore? Et cetera.

After determining that yes, in fact, candles are the right direction, you also learn that your consumer base is a collection of, essentially, wannabe indie rockstars all working high stress corporate jobs. They turn to your brand to cut lose, express themselves, and more importantly destress. Burning candles for them is like a ritual that helps them transition their home vibes from remote work to a calming space for me-time and gathering with friends. You develop your brief, and are sure to include your company and your clientele’s commitment to sustainability, environmental causes, and human rights. And a key social trend is to be anything but vanilla. Any fragrance you develop has to take all of that into account. Now, there will be many more details to sort out, but this is a much better start than, “I just want something that smells good.”

You could, of course, choose do this project in house and work directly with an independent perfumer. Or you could, like many brands, work with an organization, like Firmenich or Givaudan, to guide you through your brief process, conduct market analysis on your behalf, and guide the overall fragrance development process. But whatever you do, before you ever start talking about fragrance molecules or scent throw, remember that fragrance is after all is a product. So just like every other product development process you need to start by doing your market research.