marketing and branding

here's a little picture

well, today’s picture is actually too small. I cannot upload a larger version here, but there’s one on my facebook site if you care to see it all. It is a panoramic view, taken with my ipad. I learned about this panorama function at the stand. I did not know how simple it is to get this 360 degree pictures done with a pad. And when in the factory, today, I want to do the same thing in the factory. Let’s see how that will turn out.

The panorama photo was taken early in the morning, before the visitors arrived. And trust me: We had so many visitors during the 3 days that often it was impossible to talk to all of them. Which is a pit(t)y. The Pitti is open, one day, for the public hence you have Mr. and Ms. Smith coming by with dogs and children and it often feels like being in a park in the afternoon where everybody is strolling around. The only difference: The air is soaked with a thousand perfumes.

Two days, the fair is sort of reserved for the buyers, distributors from the world, but mostly retailers from Italy and some few from other countries. The French are -like every year- missing. I feel that the French have not realized yet that perfumes are made outside of France, too. The distributors often come from the eastern parts of Europe and they want to make you rich. That’s what one guy told me, not this year, but the line would not amaze me. It fits. “I will make you rich”. -“Oh, wow. nice!”, I go.

“yes, but you need to give me a coefficient of 8”, he said (that means the retail price divided by 8 is your selling price)

“oh, … no, not really”. And then that’s the end.

Quite often, to be honest, perfumes are not smelled, or not until the end. For some, the coefficient is the key. The perfumes are secondary. This helps me a lot to distinguish and who’s not starting by smelling my creations is usually out of discussion for me.

And then, there is the press, the bloggers, coming to the stands. There again, there are differences. Some are passionate and smell their noses off.  Some are just trying to collect as many selfies as they can get and hence have no time to smell. But I had some great first encounters with bloggers and vloggers and look forward to talking them in the future. The world of blogging has changed, and in a good way it got more professional. In a bad way, sometimes, too.

Thus, I learned from a fellow perfumer that he was handed out a price list for coverage by a blog, together with the request for free full bottles.

So there you go: It is an interesting world, this perfumery (business) world. After 3 days in Florence, at Pitti, I am always looking forward to doing the real thing which is bottle packing and getting shipments ready. Real perfume work is ZEN.