Rexam provided components for both the retail-sized Lolita Lempicka Si Lolita and the mini-version.

Fragrance Takes a Positive Note

Decorative finishes, creative shapes, technical advances and even digital interaction waft across fragrance counters to draw returning consumers closer.

By Leah Genuario, Contributing Editor

Santa filled many stockings with prestige fragrance this past holiday season, according to a December report from market researcher The NPD Group. Among its findings, total prestige fragrance sales grew 4% heading into the season, from August through October, compared to the same time period last year.

Single-item women’s fragrance products experienced six months of growth and a 9% jump in October sales, while men’s fragrance products posted five months of gain and accelerated growth of 20% in October. Contributing to “the most positive monthly performance in at least two years,” according to NPD, were successful fragrance launches, such as Gucci Guilty, Acqua Di Gioia, Bleu De Chanel and The One Gentlemen.

“New fragrances, as well as classic scents, again became [top gift] contenders,” said Karen Grant, vice president and global industry analyst, The NPD Group.

Hope is in the air for industry pundits, who have in recent years suffered disheartening declines amid recessionary woes, as well as changes in consumer behavior and market trends. The past year has, however, ushered in some more favorable news
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“Fragrance has been experiencing a comeback over the past six to eight months,” confirms Rochelle Bloom, president of The Fragrance Foundation. “Creativity and good design are returning and consumers are taking a new delight in discovering beautiful, whimsical, edgy, collectable bottles that totally capture the essence of the fragrance within. But we’re not out of the woods yet. We need to learn from our past successes and failures and remain ahead of the consumer curve. We need to listen more to what the consumer says and not only respond, but ‘wow’ them.” (For more on Bloom’s thoughts on the fragrance industry, please go to nitesh_bp.rodpub.com.)

Many brands have already taken this course. Fragrance suppliers report an uptick in innovative designs and decorations that are true to the brand and to the targeted consumer.

This is the observation of specialty glass packaging supplier and in-house decorator SGD. “The economic downturn is forcing the industry to rethink the fine fragrance business model, for the better. Innovation is the lifeblood of fragrance, providing continued differentiation,” comments Sheherazade Chamlou, vice president of sales and marketing.

Chamlou also notes that with “the shortening of a standard fragrance’s shelf life” in recent times, brands are emphasizing “innovative packaging designs that will catch the consumer’s attention and drive brand growth.”

Glass manufacturer and decorator Pavisa Glass of Mexico also sees today’s brands pushing the limits of design and technology capabilities to introduce something special to consumers. “Highly innovative proprietary glass technologies and secondary applications offer a point of differentiation for both prestige and mass categories,” says Luis Gonzalez Rodriquez, president of Pavisa worldwide. “The packaging itself is much more sophisticated in order to surprise the consumer…the name of the game is creativity and innovation.”

Creativity must be matched with realism, however, as product positioning impacts the applications of some of the more complex new technologies. “New products are launched frequently, and are substituted faster than before, which makes the whole industry more dynamic and [reactive],” explains Gonzalez. In addition to speed-to-market considerations, pricing always plays an important role. Gonzalez adds, “Since the life of a product is shorter than before, customers look for less investment on development.”

Secondary Packaging Shines

A fragrance’s secondary package—the outer package housing and protecting the bottle—often provides the first impression of a product. Although its functionality is important, so is its appealing look and connection to the product inside.

Secondary packaging providers report several trends emerging within this specialized category, as well as renewed vigor in adding value in this way.

Arkay Packaging, secondary packaging supplier for companies such as Elizabeth Arden and Estée Lauder, has seen its “luxury customers come full circle to spend more on adding value to their packaging. They’ve seen the success of mass companies improving their packaging and are taking it to the next level,” says Gregg Goldman, director of sales.

With today’s technologies, adding pizzazz doesn’t always mean loading on expense. “Quite often, we can add value to a package without adding cost, due to inline processes and techniques that didn’t exist 15 years ago,” adds Goldman.

Embossing is a popular decorating technique used by Arkay Packaging, one of the several decorating technologies employed for the Hello Kitty carton.

Increasing decoration is the main trend noted by Claude Desmarais, vice president of business development for folding carton and gift set manufacturer Bellwyck. Many different techniques are currently en vogue, says Desmarais, citing as examples multiple coatings, the use of texture, eye-catching graphics, and glitter. In a nod to an increasingly environmentally conscious world, he observes that cartons made of recycled paper are also in demand.

Arkay Packaging notes several decoration techniques increasing in popularity. Among them, many consumers are requesting texture, accomplished mainly through the use of spot coatings or embossing, as well as multiple colors of stamping leaf used on one package, says Goldman. Its packaging for Hello Kitty demonstrates the texture trend, utilizing a combination of multi-level embossing with hot-stamping holographic leaf to create the appearance of encrusted jewels.

And one interesting element may be an up-and-coming feature of secondary packages. “I think there will be a big push into augmented reality and digitally interactive packaging,” predicts Goldman. “A customer can scan a code with their phone and see a video or receive additional information.”

Primary Packaging Connects

What’s inside the carton is equally important. Designers of primary packaging must consider several factors to assure consumer loyalty.

“We are in an innovation-driven business, with thousands of retail launches every year—at a time of retail consolidation. The bar of excellence is constantly being raised. This applies to technical aspects as well as package design and decorative features, which must all link together to build our customers’ brands,” says Samira Chmiti, product manager—fragrance, Rexam Personal Care Division.

Rexam Personal Care Division, providing pumps, inserts and caps as well as related decorative elements, offers a range of pumps that create a “spray experience virtually identical to aerosol, without propellants,” says Chmiti. Technical mastery is expected by today’s consumers, explains Chmiti, adding, “End users of fragrances in all price points now have embraced and often expect the quality experience of this new breed of fragrance packaging solutions.”

The company also works with brands to create mini-products, touching on a key trend in consumer behavior, which Chmiti describes as “nomadism.”

Showcase on the Environment With a mission to cross “a new frontier in the world of cosmetics and organic, eco-friendly perfumes,” the Mouvement Infini group, an alliance between eight manufacturing partners, recently announced the launch of Emoi Infini. The line is comprised of a men’s, women’s and children’s fragrance, perfumes individually named Elle, Lui and Moi. All steps in the process—ranging from raw materials to fragrance to packaging to consumption—were planned and designed with an eco-friendly approach. On the packaging end, the glass bottles were supplied by SGD, which utilized Infinite Glass, a 100% recycled and recyclable glass.VPI, a subsidiary of Faiveley Plasturgie Group, provided injected caps and closures made with 100% recycled PET. The dense, full-volume spray was enabled thanks to Rexam Personal Care’s neutral XD11 fragrance screw/unscrew pump equipped with a Maxi-Mist insert. A sustainable and lightweight GC1 cartonboard, called Carta Elega, was offered by M-real Consumer Packaging for the line’s secondary packaging. Other contributors to the project include contract manufacturer and formulator Strand Cosmetics Europe, raw material supplier Mane, design agency Extreme Paris and printer Wauters.

“We use our favorite products at work, home, at the club, on the go. So portability is the key,” she says. “Brand owners now regularly work with their one-stop source suppliers to create launches that combine the retail product with the mini-product.” For example, Rexam collaborated on Lolita Lempicka Si Lolita, providing its XD-11 fine mist pump and closure for the retail-sized product, and the Rexam Mini-mist to power the mini-version.

In addition to technical achievements, good primary packaging, say suppliers, must relay a compelling story.

“Packaging has to send a message to the consumer, and has to have elements to which the consumer can relate to. At the end of the day, it’s all about the packaging and the story behind it,” says Gonzalez of Pavisa.

Many fragrances are rising to the challenge, pairing well-executed decoration with strong brand ideals. For Twirl, by Kate Spade, SGD worked to provide a bottle that conveys the same elegance and classy image seen throughout the lifestyle brand. This translated to a heavy-glass sphere printed with technically challenging golden dots.

In another example, Rexam worked with the Pucci brand to develop a closure that paid homage to the brand’s signature scarf design. The final result is a six-color component with depth and clarity, visible from every angle. “We believe that a superior closure elevates the fragrance package to an art form,” says Chmiti, “Our quest is to use technology in a way that communicates core brand attributes and results in dramatic consumer appeal.”

How this focus on brand ideals translates into specific package design depends upon the targeted demographic. SGD has adopted four main consumer attitudes, determined by design agency Nelly Rodi, that influence current fragrance packaging design, defining the groups as “fix-its,” “emo-technos,” “activists,” and “sophistocrats.”

The environmentally conscious fix-its are attracted to industrial design and sustainable packaging. The emo-technos, in an effort to reconcile the “archaic and the technological,” prefer the mixing of contrasting elements like skin tones with coppery metallic accents. Activists are “artistic rebels” drawn toward brutalized materials, bulkiness and bold hues while sophistocrats mix fun and creativity, preferring preppy and trendy designs. Together with its R&D team, SGD leverages these observations to help clients navigate the packaging process.

Decoration

As should be expected, the need to tell a unique story has spurred a number of decoration trends within primary packaging. Mike Warford, national sales manager, ABA Packaging Corp., a supplier of stock and custom glass bottles, fine mist pumps, and caps to the fragrance market, says customers are currently requesting frosting and specialized color coatings. Warford also notes, “Many customers are requesting multiple deco images with tighter registrations and we have enlisted heat-transfer labeling to serve this need.”

Gonzalez notes that Pavisa has seen an increasing number of requests for various combinations of secondary processes such as partial spray, degradation and hot stamping.

“Customer demands span the entire spectrum of capabilities, from very complex decorations, where Pavisa has etched glass and applied seven or eight color prints plus a window, to bottles that are printed with one or two colors only,” he says, adding, “You can dress up a bottle very differently by only changing the decoration. The industry is getting more competitive by the day, and most of the time, the package design is what makes the difference.”