Arabic Perfumes in the Global Fragrance Industry Case Study

A positioning strategy for Arabic Perfume in global fragrance market

When assessed in conjunction with what are the contemporary dynamics in the global market of fragrances, it will appear that just about any company that specializes in producing/retailing Arabic perfumes will be in the position to benefit from being able to provide consumers with a number of the strongly competitive business propositions. The main of them are as follows:

• Arabic perfumes are commonly assumed to feature some extremely unique scents. This assumption is thoroughly valid as the Arabian fragrance-makers have traditionally been using the oils of such exotic (as to the rest of the world) plants as Black iris, Ta’if roses, Frankincense trees, Casablanca lilies, Persian saffron (Dehghan par. 3).
• Arabic perfumes are sold at a much lower price, as compared to the prices of the world’s leading perfume brands, such as Chanel, Christian Dior, or Calvin Klein.
• The popular image of Arabic perfumes, closely associated with the notion of environmental friendliness, if fully consistent with the growing popularity of the concept of ‘ethical consumerism’ in the West.

The above-stated presupposes that Arabic Perfume (as a brand name) should consider adopting the so-called ‘societal’ approach to defining its position strategy in the global fragrance market, concerned with establishing the objective preconditions for the targeted audience to think of the company’s products as such that represent a particularly high perceptual value. As a result, the positioning strategy in question should be concerned with taking into account the main provisions of the ‘post-industrial’ (or perceptual-value-based) approach to marketing.

Brand image Arabic Perfume can develop in the global fragrance market

The earlier mentioned considerations presuppose that while establishing its brand image, Arabic Perfume should pay close attention to what account for the particulars of the currently dominant public discourse in the world, which in turn has a strong effect on the would-be targeted consumers’ purchasing choices. Because of the holistic appeal, radiated by the very notion of ‘Oriental fragrance’, it will only be logical for Arabic Perfume to position itself as a socially responsible commercial entity, which is genuinely interested in making this world a better place.

Therefore, as a part of establishing its brand image, Arabic Perfume should benefit from adopting the operational principle of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), reflective of the assumption is that by choosing in favor of conducting their operations in a communally responsible (ethical/environmentally friendly) manner, companies can contribute towards increasing the rate of these operations’ long-term commercial sustainability. In its turn, this will allow Arabic Perfume to take advantage of the earlier mentioned ‘ethical consumption’ upturn in the global market of cosmetics.

While developing its brand image, Arabic Perfume should also be mindful of the rapidly growing fragrance markets in Latin America, Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East/Persian Gulf regions of the word. For example, as Wells pointed out in 2011: “The Middle East cosmetics and toiletries market is one of the largest and most profitable in the world… with an annual growth rate of 12%” (p. 54). This presupposes that the company’s marketing campaigns should also be consistent with the culturally predetermined specifics of people’s consumerist behavior in the mentioned areas.

International fragrance company’s positioning as “the world’s local fragrances”

One of the international fragrance companies that succeeded splendidly in positioning itself as the ‘world’s local fragrance’ is L’Oreal. After having opened its first store in Saudi Arabia in 1982, the company remained deeply committed to the policy of adjusting the lines of its products to correlate perfectly well with the commercial and societal demands of the Persian Gulf fragrance market. The validity of this suggestion can be illustrated by the following:

• While operating in Saudi Arabia, L’Oreal never ceased being respectful of the cultural and religious specifics of the area’s business environment, which in turn helped the company to strengthen the integrity of its reputation as a socially responsible commercial enterprise. To exemplify the validity of this statement, we can refer to the company’s practice of providing substantial discounts during the celebration of Ramadan. There have also been many instances of L’Oreal’s Saudi-based TV commercials featuring quotations from the Holy Quran (Vasudevan 199).
• The perfume bottles’ design in many cases feature the unmistakably ‘Oriental’ decorative elements, such as the recurring patterns made of diagonal shapes or the images of celestial bodies. Although the logo ‘L’Oreal’ is seen on just about every of this company’s products sold in Saudi Arabia, it represents a commonplace practice for L’Oreal to provide a uniquely Arabic name for each of its lines of perfumes.
• L’Oreal’s promotion strategies do take into account the psychographic factor of what has always been known about the personality of most fragrance consumers in Saudi Arabia – namely, their strong affiliation with the so-called ‘traditional values’. This explains the company’s decision to refrain from using sexually suggestive imagery in its Saudi-oriented marketing campaigns.

It appears that the main benefit of the adoption of the culturally sensitive operational paradigm by a fragrance company/retailer, as illustrated above, is that the concerned practice results in expanding the range of the locally targeted buyers.

Rationale for international fragrance company to choose the Middle East market

The main reason why an international fragrance company would choose to move to the Middle East market is that, ever since 2010, this market was growing at an average rate of 8%-10% per year. Moreover, there several good reasons to believe that this growth will retain its current momentum at least until the year 2018: “Fragrances accounted for 19.6 percent of the Middle East and Africa’s beauty and wellness market in 2014… The (fragrance) sector is expected to post an annual growth rate of 6.3 percent to be worth $6.4 billion in 2018” (“A Scent of Growth” par. 2). Given the high density of population in this specific area of the world, and also the fact that this population is ‘young’, in the demographic sense of this word, the Middle East fragrance market is naturally seen utterly attractive by the world’s leading perfume companies – especially the ones that currently pursue the policy of aggressing expansion, such as earlier mentioned L’Oreal.

Another reason in this respect has to do with the fact that by establishing a foothold in this specific market, a company expects to gain access to some of the world’s most exquisite scent-producing materials/plants, as well as to the ancient perfume-making techniques that originated in the Middle East many centuries ago. In its turn, the viability of this particular objective is predetermined by the global market’s demand for the previously unexplored scents.

The growing market segments that fragrance industry tries to target

The fragrance industry proliferates when the overall economic situation prompts people to spend money to buy non-essential products that are believed to provide a high perceptional (imaginary) value, within the context of how the former go about celebrating their existential uniqueness. As Gilani and Gilani noted: “The improved lifestyle coupled with increased disposable income and desire towards better personality are the prime reasons for growing demands of beauty products” (2008, p. 14). Therefore, it is named in the West (the most economically prosperous part of the world) where the fragrance industry’s trends continue to originate. As of late, these trends have been reflective of the rapid growth of two distinct segments of the market that target:

• ‘Metrosexual’ men – urban-based men (commonly referred to as ‘yuppies’) who pay very close attention to their grooming.
• Environmentally conscious consumers – men and women who make a point in purchasing only the ‘organically made’ body-care products while believing that this would help them to do both – emphasize their individuality and contribute toward preserving the surrounding environment.

The role of marketing communication strategies

Given the particulars of how the mentioned groups of consumers tend to perceive the surrounding social reality (which need to be discussed separately), a fragrance company is most likely to benefit from exposing the targeted audiences to the ‘niche-based’ and ‘word-of-mouth’ marketing communication strategies. The foremost reason for this is that both strategies resonate well with how these people aspire for self-actualization (Akhter 138).

After all, it has been noted that both ‘metrosexuals’ and environmentally conscious consumers cannot help experiencing the simultaneously ‘individualist’ and ‘collectivist’ anxieties in this respect. Each of these strategies should be aimed to emphasize the product’s Unique Value Proposition (UVP) and to make sure that it is in accord with the targeted consumers’ lifestyles. And, as it was implied earlier concerning Arabic perfumes, the main factor that contributes towards the creation of such value is these products’ strongly holistic appeal. The deployment of the mentioned marketing strategies should prove especially effective if throughout the process the marketing principle ‘sense and respond’ is being closely observed as well.

Works Cited

“A Scent of Growth: Perfume Market Hits $5 Billion in the Middle East.” Abawada Business. Web.

Akhter, Syed. “Niches at the Edges: Price-Value Tradeoff, Consumer Behavior, and Marketing Strategy.” The Journal of Product and Brand Management, vol. 18, no. 2, 2009, pp. 136-142.

Dehghan, Saeed. “Perfume Brands get Whiff of Profit from Arabian Scents.” The Guardian. Web.

Gilani, Syd, and Berina Gilani. “Competitive Strategy Analysis Of The Arabian Perfume Market: Case In Focus: Al Haramain Perfumes.” Journal Of International Business Strategy, vol. 8, no. 3, 2008, pp. 13-36.

Vasudevan, Hemaloshinee. “L’Oreal Baby Girl Perfume Marketing Strategy.” International Journal of Information, Business and Management, vol. 7, no. 1, 2015, pp. 193-208.

Wells, Rhona. “The Sweet Smells Of Success.” Middle East, vol. 428, 2011, pp. 54-55.