As the UK emerges from lockdown, the fragrance market looks set for an exciting shake-up, appealing to consumers more interested in choice.

The UK is beginning to emerge from lockdown. Restrictions and a changing consumer preference have hit the fragrance market hard, sales have faltered, and Euromonitor International reported subdued demand in 2020.

The fragrance market is hyper-competitive. In the UK alone, 378 brands compete with countless international brands for minimal shelf space amongst the traditional retailers. Niche fragrances and smells are often left undiscovered as creators can’t produce the volumes to fill the shelves of chains or struggle to find the right marketing platform and budget essential for a traditional retailer to stock a fragrance.

Two serial entrepreneurs Ryan Hall and Lorenzo Vasini, ran into just this problem when they created Vaunt in 2018. A high end, luxury set of fragrances that were designed to have smaller limited manufacturing runs. A product designed for a customer that doesn’t want to smell like everyone else.

They quickly discovered an overwhelming amount of choice in the market. For a customer, this makes finding a unique fragrance nigh on impossible. If you are looking for a fragrance that isn’t found within a traditional retailer, you must navigate a jargon-filled online landscape filled by over 1696 online scent retailers.

So in 2021, Ryan and Lorenzo launched their innovative solution, Hoohaa, a subscription delivery service that picks out the best independent and niche fragrances, delivering them to your door in a convenient 10ml bottle. Perfect for the shift in consumer mindset towards not committing to a single scent.

The Consumer has changed.

Before launching Hoohaa, the team of Ryan and Lorenzo knew that their design and packaging had to meet the expectations of their audience. With only 29% of adults shopping online for fragrances, branding was vital to help independent fragrance manufacturers reach the right audience in this £7 billion market.

Hoohaa enlisted the services of Bright Collie, an exciting and bold design agency. Ryan Hall said, “We chose Bright Collie because design itself is so much more than aesthetics. The team at Bright Collie became our strategic advisors, partnering with us not just to create but to shape the direction and drive our brand toward what our customers want.”

Choice without commitment but still committed to the future:

The online fragrance consumer is looking for a responsible and sustainable brand. New lifestyles have emerged through the pandemic, with more people growing more mindful of the environment, sustainability and the products they put onto their skin.

Creating a packaging design that could run in small batches and keep sustainability at its core was key to the success of this subscription brand.

The design team have brought the packaging to life using recyclable materials. An essential ingredient for a customer who cares about sustainability but won’t be tied down with 10ml fragrance bottles lasting around 150 sprays.

More importantly, the materials are supported by carefully selected craft colours that semiotically signal to the consumer to recycle once they have finished with the product.

The fragrances themselves pose an interesting design challenge. They are bold, niche, exciting, innovative smells carefully crafted to be gender-neutral. From a design perspective, it was important for Bright Collie to position the product as neutral and transportable but also use graphics to symbolise the boldness, the tones and the depths that you get from smelling perfume for the first time.

The audience themselves are being treated to a carefully selected, independent fragrance each month. The concept and connection between the customer and creator are essential to uphold. Each fragrance shipped to the customer has its own story, and the audience is led to content to help them discover the story of the unique scent and the story of the creator through QR codes.

The impact of such care on the customer’s desires and connecting them to the many fragrances they come to meet is evident in the fast growth of Hoohaa’s subscription business. Sales targets are ahead of projections, and the social sentiment reflects a genuine love for the packaging design.