designreviews

COLOGNE du Maghreb

Today, after me packing more Colognes in tauerville yesterday, a word on the Cologne du Maghreb, and an illustration of the cologne flacon, as seen in the factory yesterday, digital.
Sooooo…. the cologne: First a couple of links pointing to reviews. Have fun reading about summer bottled!
Gaia Fishler at The Non-Blonde
Jodi Battershell of Fragrantica
Samantha at I Scent You a Day
Vanessa at Bonkers About Perfume
Kafkaesque at Kafkaesque
Grant Osborne at Basenotes
Lucas at Chemist in the Bottle
Mark Behnke at Colognisseur

You see: We did some promotion there. Or better said: We offered samples to bloggers. More reviews are to be expected. When I send samples, I never ever demand that bloggers write, nor that they write positively. I wish so, of course, as we all do not like to read unpleasant articles about our creations….

I mention this, as I was thinking about the cologne as a perfect example of communication, and communicating or not and what happens if you have a product in a store, and what not.
The cologne du Maghreb was for a long time in two stores only. I offered it two, three years ago, as test, and as there was some demand. I did not offer it on my store, nor did I promote it really. Although, don’t get me wrong: I think it is one of the best cologne out there on the market, whereby I mean  REAL colognes, not perfume camouflaged as cologne. This cologne comes at a concentration of 4%, all natural, handmade, in low numbers. Of course, I am totally, 100% biased and not fair. Anyhow, it is a wonderful product for a great price, really, yet this was and is not enough. (you remember the 4P: Product, Price, Place, Promotion). Assuming that the place was right, it was Promotion that was missing. It needed help. Promotion. People talking. Perfume lovers chatting about it. The press publishing (we can dream, can’t we?)….

The days when the circle of niche (artisanal, indie, whatever) fragrances was small enough that the pure existence of a scent was enough to make it known, to automatically have the word spreading, these days are over. In a sense, 10 years ago, there were exceptional circumstances, of a market emerging, with consumers being on the alert.

Promotion, of course, means much more than sending samples to bloggers. Like said above: We are talking about press, pictures, and and and. The goal: Getting out of the corner.

And this is the end of my post: You know, sometimes I fall into a state of stasis, when I see how much money pours into promotion by brands, be they niche or not, and what effect it has. It is brainwash money. Used very effectively, coming with the desired result. Like an article in the NY Times, about that everybody seems to talk, highly agitatedly, without realizing that it actually is just a perfect marketing piece for a larger store chain and their new fragrant products, repeating facts that were like that since always as news

Here, being niche in a niche in a niche, I can’t really do that (pour money), but at least we can try to be smarter. Although: Not easy, really.