By Martine Ringwald
Director Europe, Beauty

Believe it or not, the fragrance category in France has been struggling for the past few years. It is increasingly difficult for brands to build market share, as more and more fragrances enter this competitive market. Instead of increasing a brand’s share of the market, the new fragrances cannibalize the existing product range, and then suffer their own short lives.

Manufacturers are learning to adapt to these challenges with NPD’s weekly point-of-sale data. It helps them measure new launch performance and assess return on investment for media and promotional spending associated with new launches.

In one case, the weekly information helped a leading fragrance manufacturer identify a sharp decline in its new brand’s market share just weeks after its launch. The brand’s value share dropped from 2.9% to 1.8% within six weeks.

Alarmed, the manufacturer boosted media spending and included “POS qualitative activities” such as displays targeted to specific retailers and hiring staff to promote the product on-site.

The result? The sweet smell of success. The manufacturer exceeded its marketing objectives: the brand’s market share not only recovered, it grew from 1.7% to 3.4%. The strongest competitors in the field did not have the same data and were unable to match the first manufacturer’s efforts to secure their own market share.

Today NPD provides this weekly data delivery for fragrances, skincare and makeup in Europe, and for fragrances in the U.S.. For more information about how NPD BeautyTrends can help your business, contact us at +1-866-444-1411 or contactnpd@npd.com.