uHollywood

the past few years the fragrance industry has become flooded with celebrity perfumes, as film stars, singers and minor celebrities alike have jumped on the scented band-wagon.

It was an easier ride for Elizabeth Taylor when she introduced her perfume ‘Diamonds’

to an unsuspecting society as one of the entrepreneurs of the celebrity fragrance.

She was closely followed by J Lo’s ‘Glow’ which filtered it’s way onto our TV screens and numerous billboards.

Since then, so many celebrities have joined in by producing their own signature scents that the industry has experienced an annual 2% decline since 2001 according to NPD Beauty.

Despite this fall in sales the industry is drawing in an average figure of around $2.9 million, so is highly lucrative. The only problem is that customers now have so much choice that it is hard for them to single out one special fragrance for themselves, especially as some perfumes tend to be very similar and so lack distinctiveness.

The industry is keen, when using celebrities to promote their brands, that the celebrity has the right image for them. Kate Moss discovered this to her peril after being pictured, supposedly, taking drugs as she was dropped from advertising Coco Mademoiselle and replaced by Kiera Knightly.

The fragrance companies try to use the status and image of the celebrity to represent how they wish a certain fragrance to be viewed by the public, ie, sensual or sporty.

Marketing of fragrances has had to change its style slightly as the industry reaches out to a younger market to go along with the fan base of the individual celebrities.

As the 16-24 year old market consists of unenthusiastic TV watchers who prefer to spend time on the Internet for entertainment, the advertising has to be done where they will see it on the Internet too.

It costs a great deal to bring out a new fragrance and it probably won’t show any profit for the first few years, so it needs to be successful. With so many new fragrances out there some are bound to be unsuccessful if the competition is high enough.

We can only hope that this means that the quality won’t be watered down by over production and will be stepped up instead, especially as some of us are bound to find some perfume in the bottom of our Christmas stocking this year.

Sources. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14 289131