Opening Lines: Is Creativity Dead?
Are fragrance flankers killing bottle design?
By Jennifer Kwok, EditorWhen I interviewed Rochelle Bloom, president of The Fragrance Foundation, for this issue’s Perspectives column, one of the questions that I wanted to be sure to ask was whether or not fragrance bottle designs have become stale. It’s a question that’s been on my mind ever since I heard someone pose it at a Luxe Pack Monaco conference in 2005.
The conference was titled Meet the Flankers, and it was moderated by Marc Rosen. The speakers discussed flanker fragrances—that is, line-extension fragrances usually packaged in the same signature fragrance bottle, albeit with different decoration. “Flankers are usually differentiated from the original master brand by variations on color, designs targeting a new lifestyle or consumer focus, different ingredient notes or a lighter- scented formulation, or a seasonal theme,” we described in our January/February 2006 news story on the conference.
There are several reasons why brands choose to launch flankers rather than to design a new fragrance bottle from scratch. Avoiding costs to build a new mold, achieving speed to market—those are just a few. But also, many companies find it more economical to continue to reap the benefits of a fragrance’s already-built brand image.
Do flankers hurt us or help us? They certainly don’t hurt sales—although, as one of the Luxe Pack speakers, Karen Young of The Young Group, pointed out, launching too many fragrances, such as seasonally launched flankers, can confuse the consumer. In Perspectives, Rochelle echoes that thought: “They make you as a consumer feel that what you bought last year is no good anymore.”
As a consumer, I have no problem with flankers, having purchased a few exten- sions of my favorite scents in my day. Sometimes I feel that it is nice to get my favorite fragrance in a new version. For Rochelle and the rest of the fragrance industry, however, the problem is that the fragrance market is so inundated with new fragrances and seasonal flankers that a truly original fragrance launch doesn’t necessarily get the attention from consumers that it otherwise might.
One successful flanker bottle I can think of that really does offer customers something new is Clinique’s Happy customizable fragrance bottle. It is the same bottle as the signature Happy fragrance, but unlike any other fragrance bottle on the market, its label can be decorated with a customer’s own photos. That’s taking design in a new direction. (For more on this bottle, refer to our 2008 Editors’ Choice Awards coverage from the May/June issue.)
I said that as a consumer, I don’t have a problem with flanker fragrances. As someone who writes about package design, however, the lack of fresh new bottle designs can make it difficult to find exciting new packages to write about. I will be most excited about covering those bottles that are exceptional, original, and one of a kind.