Prove you can do it

You want your own perfume but, if you had it, could you sell it? How would you go about it? That's the challenge of the "Marketer Most Likely To Sell The Most Perfume" contest.

    The "entry form" is a plan -- a realistic plan -- that shows how you would -- and could -- do it, if only you had your own perfume to sell.

    The prize is "your own" perfume -- a perfume with your name, artwork, and logo on it.

    But you can't win if you don't enter. And you can't enter if you aren't registered.

    Now some would say, "What is this perfume you're going to give me if I win?" I have been asked that question. My answer is, "it doesn't matter." When people line up to buy a new perfume from their favorite celebrity, do they really care about the scent? Do they have any appreciation for the scent? The fact is that regardless of the scent, without the celebrity's name on the bottle, they wouldn't be buying it.

    My contest is for people who understand this aspect of marketing -- people who know that it's the story that will sell a new perfume, as long as the perfume itself is nice -- and this one is. End of story. I'm looking for marketers, people who can get it done, not "perfume reviewers" who stand on the sidelines without ever getting their hands into it.

    Contest ends October 31, 2014.

    Read more here.

    Register here.

Naming a perfume

    I sold a name for a perfume last month so naming fragrances has been very much on my mind. I've started to think about developing new names and I'll probably put more effort into it in the future than I've ever done in the past.

    Think of it this way. A large number of fragrances are now being launched each year by a handful of large companies. Then there are the dozens upon dozens of fragrances being launched by smaller companies. Each one of these fragrances has to have a name -- a unique name -- but the name also must be appropriate for the perfume you are selling.

    Finding a great, original name for a new fragrance is challenging, and sometimes names collide -- two marketers hitting on the same name. If this happens to you, hope that you were the first to use that name and have some backup showing the first date on which you made sales. It could become important.

    The issue of originality is tricky and you can never be 100 percent sure that a name you have chosen isn't already in use somewhere else with another person or company having the right to that name and the potential power to block you from continuing to use it.

    Still, if you do some Google searches for the name you want and nothing remotely like a fragrance comes up, and then you do a TESS search at the U.S. Patent and Trademark and nothing shows up in the fragrance category, you can be pretty comfortable that the name is available for your use. But it doesn't become yours until you use it -- ahead of anyone else.

    For a few more notes on naming a perfume and the rights you acquire, read "Naming Your Perfume And Protecting Your Perfume's Name."
    Also, I've written a bit on this topic in my "Perfume Strategies You Missed This Month" newsletter and back issues are available here.

Contest: Marker Most Likely To Sell The Most Perfume

    I'm organizing a little contest this summer for the "Marketer Most Likely To Sell The Most Perfume," with the winner receiving some (free) perfume to sell.

    The details of the contest will be coming out in July. They will be announced at my Perfume Strategies website and through my "Perfume Strategies You Missed This Month" (free) newsletter.

    The purpose of the contest is to identify someone -- who may not even think of themselves as a marketer, much less a marketer of perfume -- who really does have the ability to sell a bit of perfume, if they can muster up a bit of creative thinking.

    The winner will get set up with a "starter" quantity of perfume -- with their own chosen brand name and labeling -- all for free. If they really can sell perfume, more of the same will be available at a price that works for both of us.

    I invite you to follow the announcements for this "Summer of 2014" contest, on our website or free newsletter. You may want to enter yourself and admission to this contest if FREE.

Keep it cheap!

If these two bottles cost the same, and your formula requires the same amount of either one or the other, and either choice will give you essentially the same result (these shown would not!), which bottle do you think would give you a marketing advantage?

    Don't get me wrong. I love beautiful -- high quality -- fragrances. I would never ask my wife to use some cheap junk garbage perfume. But if you want to make perfume yourself, unless you are independently wealthy or have a wealthy patron, you'll find yourself giving consideration to what aroma materials cost.

    I have several fragrances in my own "line" that employ relatively costly ingredients. I enjoy them and those who have purchased them enjoy them. But mostly they were made as small scale experiments -- tests to explore my own interest in these materials. I cringe at what I would have to go through to produce them on anything like a commercial scale.

    Lately I've had the not unreasonable desire to put my fragrances in the hands of more people. That means being prepared to scale up production, and that means having to put up more money.

    I think back at the time when Honda first invaded the American market. It was with a ... MOTOR SCOOTER! In fact they had a group SING about it and the song got substantial air time, drilling into our heads the brand name and the notion that it was cool.

    Worming their way in with motor scooters, Honda progressed to small automobiles. But today, in addition to their "Honda" cars and industrial equipment, they also have a line of LUXURY cars, the Acura.

    When you're developing your formulas, give thought not only to where you want to be but also to how you might get there. Starting small can be smart. And starting small can force you to think harder about your formulas and put greater effort into producing great perfumes while keeping your formulas ... cheap!

The end of Confusion (II)

The Music

The fragrance

   
     I've written about the rise of Confusion II as a perfume intended for a marketing test. Perhaps I've not said much about the test itself but now a pretty explicit report has been made available to members of the Perfume Makers & Marketers Club in our February newsletter.

    As you can read it there (by becoming a Club member) I won't go into all the details here. But I will give you an abbreviated version of the story, without the numbers, so to speak.

    My plan for Confusion II was to find a band or performer who would make it their own and market it on their "merch table" at gigs and, through their online store, if they had one.

    The recruiting details and outcomes appear in the Club newsletter article but I can announce here that I have found the group I was looking for and last Saturday "Confusion II" made its first appearance as Children of the Rhythm by The Big Takeover, a reggae/ska/rock band out of New Paltz, New York, although members are scattered around the region.

    The new name of the fragrance, Children of the Rhythm, is simply the name of the band's new CD. Both are available at the band's gigs and at their online store.

    And both are getting excellent reviews!