The Fragrance Industry: Introduction to the Industry

We fragrance everything from perfume to bath and body products, cleaning products, household products, and home fragrances.
We may not realize it, but all products have a base odor. Fragrance is then used to either mask or neutralize a scent, or to add something new to the product.
The addition of fragrance is used to enhance the experience of consumers and meet their needs or demands. Specific fragrances can target specific consumers. It’s often cultural and demographic tastes that dictate what we gravitate towards. We tend to look towards what we’re familiar with.
The generations also provide different tastes and influences. Socio and economic factors can change the trends in architecture and colors. Fragrances really mirror those trends. For example, younger generations prefer fruity fragrances, while older generations may have grown up with floral, green, powder, or heavier scents.
Another example is that American cleaning products are fragranced with pine and citrus notes, while Latin American cleaning products are fragranced with lavender. Baby products in the US use powdery notes, while in Europe orange flower and citrus notes are used for baby products.
We’re also drawn to fragrances that make us feel positive emotions like feeling special, powerful, confident, sexy, successful, clean, energized, or relaxed. Sometimes we select a fragrance based on the mood that we’re in or the experience that we’re going to have for the day. Citrus notes, for example, are energizing notes and make us feel fresh and clean. Heady floral fragrances in ambers and woods can make us feel sexy or feminine. And in the workplace, we might want to choose a fragrance that is not too intrusive or distracting but makes us feel confident.
In a competitive environment, fragrance can really make or break the viability and success of any given product. If you don’t like the way something smells, it will be hard to purchase it for the second time. Fragrance is the key.

The Marketing Environment: The Marketing Mix

We understand a lot more about marketing than we used to. An important part of the marketing process is identifying and analyzing your target customer.

After this point, the marketing process involves creating your first product and deciding on a price. Once you’ve set your price, you need to find ways to distribute it and promote it.

Marketing professionals use a tool called the marketing mix to help build their businesses and organize products.

The marketing mix is sometimes referred to as the ‘Four P Model’. But what are the ‘four P’s?

The first P is product. What kind of product is your target customer going to be interested in? For example, if you own a fragrance brand, consider the different aromas that people enjoy in each area of your target demographic. Different fragrances will be popular in different countries and even within the different regions of each country.

The important thing is to understand your customer and develop a product that’s going to appeal to them.

The second P is price. It’s not only important to have a product that is going to appeal to your target customer, but you have to have a product that your target customer can afford.

Make sure the price matches the product. Take a look at what kind of products are sold by other companies and compare them to your product. You can use this comparison to determine your price. Set your price so that it is accessible to your customers but will also provide you with a profit so you can grow a successful business.

The third P is called place or placement. You might also hear marketers call this distribution. This involves finding a place to sell your product, whether that’s in a brick-and-mortar store or online.

The final P is promotion. This involves communication and advertising to let your customers know about your product.

The Packaging Design Profession: The Packaging Designers

The role of a packaging designer is both critical and multifaceted. These designers collaborate closely with an interdisciplinary team that includes marketing experts, designers, engineers, researchers, material specialists, suppliers, manufacturers, and production teams. Their ultimate goal? To transform a product from concept to a shelf-ready marvel. Candace Allenson, a seasoned professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), sheds light on the critical role packaging designers play in preparing a product for its market debut.

 

The Workspace of a Packaging Designer

A common inquiry among those intrigued by the field of beauty packaging design relates to the environments in which these creatives operate. Marianne Klimchuk, a design professor at FIT, notes the curiosity of online beauty education students regarding not just the types of companies packaging designers collaborate with, but also the nature of their workspaces. In today’s digital era, the landscape of design agencies stretches globally, allowing packaging designers the flexibility to work from virtually anywhere. Whether it’s a cozy home office or a bustling design agency, the work environment can vary significantly.

 

A Global Network of Specialized Agencies

What sets apart packaging design in the beauty industry is the presence of specialized agencies focused solely on this niche. Unlike general graphic design firms or advertising agencies, these specialized entities are dedicated to the art and science of beauty packaging. Working on projects for both small firms and major brands, such as Glossier, packaging designers find themselves in diverse team settings, from small creative clusters to large interdisciplinary groups.

 

The Creative Environment

The physical workspace of a packaging designer is often designed to stimulate creativity and foster collaboration. It’s a space brimming with visual inspiration, from desktop computers to an array of design tools, packaging samples, and sources of inspiration. This environment mirrors that of architects and graphic designers, where the ambiance is crafted to enhance creativity, inspire innovation, and facilitate teamwork. For freelance designers or those with work-from-home arrangements, creating a personal workspace that echoes these principles is key to producing amazing packaging designs.


Crafting Packaging Designs in Beauty

The journey to creating compelling and effective packaging designs in the beauty industry is intricate and rewarding. For aspiring designers or professionals looking to deepen their understanding and skills in beauty packaging, specialized education can be a game-changer.

Whether you’re new to the field or seeking to advance your career, many of online beauty courses offer comprehensive insights into the world of beauty packaging design. These courses can provide a blend of theoretical knowledge and practical application, preparing students for success in this exciting industry.

 

Take the Next Step in Your Beauty Packaging Design Career

If you’re passionate about beauty packaging and eager to make your mark in the industry, exploring specialized education is your next step. Discover how the FIT Beauty Business Essentials Course and the FIT Beauty Industry Essentials Course at Yellowbrick can give you new opportunities and improve your design skills. Start your journey towards becoming a leading packaging designer in the beauty world today!

Industry Perspectives – Cosmetics: Three Key Traits

The beauty industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, and it takes three key traits to become a success story in this competitive field. Juliet Falchi, the director of global product innovation for MAC Cosmetics, shares a few tips with readers on how to make your mark.

Whether you’re focusing on the beauty business side, makeup artistry, beauty education, online beauty education, or cosmetics research and development, this growing industry requires hard work and dedication.

“There’s a rhyme, a reason, and a science to why we do everything that we do,” said Falchi. “There’s a lot of work, thought, and testing involved.”

Falchi believes there are three traits an aspiring beauty professional should possess in order to be successful: the first is to be flexible, adaptive, and willing to learn. The beauty industry is an extremely fast-paced environment where things are constantly changing.

“You have to know you may be working on a project for months about matte lips,” said Falchi. “Someone may come to you and say, stop what you’re doing. You need to focus on metallics. This is the new trend.”

A successful beauty professional must be able to adapt and go with the flow. There is no syllabus when it comes to working in the beauty industry as new research and trends emerge. Flexibility is key.

Number two: being collaborative is super important. You can’t work in a silo. The beauty industry means working with other people who have different opinions, backgrounds, and interests than you. When you all come together to share ideas and concepts, you can create something incredible. You may have one piece of the puzzle, but you need all these diverse people to create the rest.

Lastly, Falchi says the third trait you need is to be passionate about beauty and truly love what you’re doing. That passion will shine through you and everything you do.

Today’s Industry: Facts, Trends, and Careers: Industry Perspective – Digital Has Changed the Playing Field

“All of beauty has changed because of technology,” explains Sophia Panych. “The first is backstage, primarily because I’ve done Fashion Week. I covered Fashion Week for eight years. I’ve gone to Milan and Paris twice a year to cover the shows. And that is something that has completely changed, not just for editors in magazines, but for the people that work backstage-the hair, the makeup artists, the models.”
Technology—and social media—has exposed something that used to be private and secretive. Exclusive is now broken wide open. There are no secrets left.
It’s changed how we talk about beauty makeup trends. Trends don’t really exist anymore because of social media. You get so much information at once, there’s no chance for something to build for six months and become a trend that everybody copies. It’s changed how important Fashion Week is in terms of those beauty trends.
Beauty brands work so fast now. Social media and technology have completely changed how brands strategize their product launches and how they get the news out about products to their consumers. The playing field has changed, and everybody has to shift their strategies and their plans. If the companies are changing their plans, the editors have to change how they cover them. It’s a cycle.
Panych continues, “As an editor, we work a lot faster and produce a lot more content. So that’s another thing that has definitely changed.”

Industry Perspectives: Be Business-Savvy

Jeanne Grey, founder of GreyLayers says that cosmetics and beauty as a whole can change one’s personality. “When I was little, I used to observe my mom and how she got ready in the morning and completely transform from a completely simple person into somebody different. I saw how her personality changed along with that and I thought that was amazing. I wanted to grow up and see how I can do that for other people as well,” explains Grey.

Grey says about beginning her career as a social media beauty expert, “My advice to the younger me would be to just be you and just let things flow. And eventually, with experience, all the trial and errors counted in too, everything will just work out.”

The most common mistake that Grey has seen in the beauty industry is people not being prepared prior to getting into the career. She says, “You have to treat this career as you would any other career, being a lawyer, a doctor, any important one.” She also emphasizes being business savvy and professional. “This industry, especially because it is an easy play, you know playing with cosmetics, products and different kinds of experiences, you easily forget to be professional.”

One of the ways Grey has found success in her career is by putting together case studies. These case studies are reports of a certain niche project that she’s done in the past. “For instance, as an influencer, I have done projects for a lot of hospitality brands,” says Grey. In order to land a gig with a beauty brand, Grey creates a slideshow that ties in her hospitality background of traveling and creating content. She then combines beauty into that by showing them that she was able to use beauty products throughout her trip. “I highlight how I was able to create that and capture my audience at the same time.”

Today’s Industry: Facts, Trends, and Careers: Today’s Industry

In 2016, the global beauty and personal care industry was valued at almost $444 billion. This dollar amount includes skincare, haircare, color cosmetics, fragrances, and other beauty-related products. This is a very large and profitable industry. Growth is predicted to be positive over the next five years.

So, who are the biggest names in the beauty and personal care industry? Let’s take a look at the top five companies by retail sales volume.

1. The L’Oréal Group is a French corporation that owns L’Oréal and Lancome. For additional information, visit the L’Oréal Group’s website. You’d be surprised at what you’d find, as they’re likely to own one or two of your favorite brands.
2. Procter & Gamble is an American company that makes excellent drugstore items, such as Oil of Olay.
3. Unilever is a large multinational company with a unique history. The company is from both the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. They also sell products like Dove all around the world.
4. Colgate-Palmolive is an American company focusing on drugstore beauty and personal care products such as Irish Spring.
5. The Estée Lauder Companies has an extensive luxury portfolio. Tom Ford beauty goods are owned and distributed by this American corporation.

In 2016, the L’Oréal Group took the #1 spot in the beauty and personal care industry. Even though they already have a strong portfolio, they continue to acquire or purchase exciting new brands. For example, they’ve purchased high-growth brands like IT Cosmetics and Urban Decay in recent years.

Industry Perspectives: Push Yourself to Explore

Hannah Bronfman, founder of HBFIT sits down with us and provides advice on how to get a career in the beauty industry and push yourself out of your comfort zone

“I think the advice that I would give to my younger self would be don’t feel awkward about cold calling and reaching out blind,” says Hannah Bronfman, founder of HBFIT. “I think there’s something to be said about a go-getter and someone who knows what they want and how to get it, or at least how they think they know how to get it.”

When you cold call someone and you have a heart and soul behind what you’re trying to achieve, that comes through. Maybe the first time, the person doesn’t answer the email but emails them again. Persistence is key.

A specific area of the beauty industry that’s changed via technology is the booking platforms. Hannah says a lot of these companies have created their own SaaS products, which is a statistical analytics system that is like the brain of a lot of these apps. Whether it’s Glam Squad, the Glamm app, Style Seat, all of these programs and technologies have created a new way that people interact with beauty and the way that beauty is booked for the professional and the consumer.

It’s brought the beauty world to a full on-demand system just like everything else that we see. So I think technology has an impact on the product and the way it’s designed.

Every single brand is trying to recreate the lipstick or foundation, lotions, gels that finish matte or true match a color, or lipstick that looks blue, but it’s going to turn bright pink. I think everyone’s trying to do this kind of surprise and delight using technology to help create a different product that hasn’t been to the market yet, says Hannah.

To prepare for an interview, you can do a few things differently. One, do your research, know who you’re being interviewed by, and know the trajectory of their career.

For the company that you’re interviewing for, know their past big product launches and what has gone on in the news.

Consider: Have they raised money? Have they been acquired? Did they go through a recall?

“Those are things that you want to know before an interview. And I think some other things that you can do is, always, if you’re going into a beauty meeting, wear lipstick, wear eye shadow, nothing that’s flashy, but something that says you’re an enthusiast,” Hanna explains. “And always be polite, take your time when you’re speaking. It comes off a lot better when you don’t say the word like or um.”

What Is Beauty Marketing?: Customer Relationship Management

This article will discuss two aspects of the marketing process: analyzing sales over time and collecting feedback. These details are crucial since you want to know whether your product is a success or not.

Because you’re continuously attempting to improve your customer service, gathering feedback is critical. When it comes to client connection building, the first thing to remember is to make sure you’re offering customers what we call “perceived value” in marketing, which is an essential concept.

Perceived value relates to a customer’s internal assessment of whether a product is worth the price you’re asking. This value is in terms of both money and the time and effort it takes to obtain it. As a result, you’re continually striving to make sure you’re in sync with your customers’ perceptions of value. It would be best if you also kept in mind that customers sometimes misjudge value and cost.

Consider how a rare ingredient for a scent or a special pigment for a cosmetic will significantly increase the price of your product. If your customer doesn’t value the unique ingredient, you’re not going to pay for it because it doesn’t match their perceived value. This area is where you should get input regularly.

You must ensure that your assessment of your proposition’s value correlates to the customer’s sense of value. You’ll do this because you want to build long-term connections with your customers. The main objective of marketing is to increase consumer loyalty. You strive to gain and build long-term relationships with your customers.

Repeat customers are more likely to generate more profits for your business. The 80/20 rule in marketing suggests that 20% of your clients account for 80% of your profits, which is a significant amount of money. You should make a considerable effort to cultivate long-term customers.

To do so, you must first figure out what their needs and wants are. A customer’s need is something they can’t live without. Customers crave or desire something based on their personality, culture, or society. Marketers of beauty products and fragrances tend to focus on wants rather than needs. To establish a devoted customer base, you’ll need to concentrate on this topic.

Attracting customers and keeping customers are two separate matters. Customer relationship management (CRM) is how businesses tackle this critical issue of customer relationships. CRM encapsulates the marketing process. It’s the method of establishing and keeping profitable customer relationships by providing superior value and satisfaction to all of your customers.

Industry Perspectives: The More You Know, the Better

We’re in for a really big change. Things are changing before our eyes now; the retail experience is totally different from what it used to be. We’re also going to see a lot of movement.

The people that are going to be successful are the ones that are aware of how people are shopping. Hopefully, people will go back into the store, but a lot is happening online. But how do you sell makeup online? You’ve got to be creative.

One piece of advice to anyone that wants to be an entrepreneur — because who doesn’t want to work for themselves — is to make sure you have something or an idea that is better than anything out there. Bobbi Brown, a makeup artist/author/entrepreneur says “It’s got to be new. It’s got to be better. Make sure you know you’re going to be working 24 hours a day. You never stop thinking about it.”

I also recommend working for a company. Go work for a big company, because then you’ll know what you don’t want to do. You’ll learn how to act, how to arrive on time, and how to write spreadsheets. The more you know, the better you do. There’s no rush.

Brown says there are three traits he loves to see when people want to get into the beauty industry. Number one: energy. You need to have good and positive energy.

You also need to be really curious. I don’t care what you know. I care what you want to know.

The third thing, which everyone says, is passion. You have to love what you do. You have to love the industry you’re in.