Latest / Skin Anarchy / The Mastermind Behind Victoria’s Secret Magical Perfumes, Mark Knitowski - E.421

Transcript

The Mastermind Behind Victoria’s Secret Magical Perfumes, Mark Knitowski - E.421 · Skin Anarchy

• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, this talk really does speak for itself.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, uh, without further ado, I want to introduce you guys to the mastermind behind all of the amazing scents that we love and grew up loving by Victoria's Secret.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: Mark Natalski.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the show, Mark.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so honored to be able to see you.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks for having me.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's always a pleasure to connect and with you and with customers and you know, just spread the love of a great fragrance business, though.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, it's it's really, really great to be able to learn from um someone such as yourself because I know you have had so much experience.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, literally, like you know the industry in and out.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I would love to get started by just talking about your career and just, you know, really um from the beginning, if you could kind of walk us down, you know, where everything began and um how the whole trajectory went.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, I've been, I think fortunate luck plays into a lot of things, and then you're being able to deliver when you have that opportunity.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I've been fortunate.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: I started my career as a chemist, um, working at Medisha Pharmaceutical, developing formulas, lotions, creams, shower gels, everything but makeup we did there.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um in the process of doing that, we were working on this is a while ago.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in the process of doing that, we were doing a lot of work with a company called Griffin Development that did all the ancillary products for um Bath Body Works in Victoria's Secret.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Through that process, I met a lot of great people.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: And the feeling was Mark, you know, you're one chemist in one place, you have a lot of cool ideas.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Would you rather come and work for Griffin doing formulas for Bath Body Works in Victoria's Secret?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you could use our supplier base and give them ideas so you can work on multiple things at multiple places and kind of come up.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: So at that time, Griffin was like the development arm for everything for Beauty for L brands, whether it was Victoria's Secret, Abercrombie and Fitch, you know, Victoria's Secret, uh, anything that um we actually did stuff for Target and uh Disney.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we did so many different brands.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so through that, you know, I do I learned a lot of the development, um, had a lot of fun doing formulas.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: I have four patents on formulas I developed through that process um with different people.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: And through that process, and I'd say '99, 2000, they decided to disband Griffin and split the groups into either Bath Body Works or Victoria's Secret.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: I went into Victoria's Secret and a lot of people decided to exit the business at that time.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: I just thought Victoria's Secret was still had a lot of upside opportunity to grow and was excited about the opportunity to work on a brand that was vertically integrated, that had its own stores, that you could develop and go to stores, talk to customers.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: And at the time, Robin Burns, who arguably the most iconic, you know, female marketer of fragrance in the US, um was in charge of the business.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, you know, Mark, you want to learn fragrance, which wasn't at the time my area of expertise.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Yeah, you know, who better to learn from?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the the woman who did, you know, um eternity obsession, um, pleasures.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it's like, yeah, it's great to learn from her.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: So she was very instrumental in my growth at in the beginning of around fragrance.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: She had me go to um two of the fragrance houses for fragrance training almost every day for about a year, year and a half um to really get grounded in the notes, the market, the competitive landscape, how to develop.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, we did a lot of great things together.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we did Heavenly, um, Halo Divine, Pink, I mean, so many fragrances.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, I I think from there, through her passion and energy for fragrance, it made me love fragrance and the connection fragrance made with people.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, again, under her tutelage, I was very she was very direct of what she wanted.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: I there wasn't a lot of freedom around, hey more, try this or try that.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Initially it was like, I'm gonna I'm gonna gauge what I want you to go after and to stay within those that spectrum.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um which at the time of my career I understood because I was just learning, for example, I'm learning from someone who had an amazing history and amazing success rate.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my job is to learn and evolve through what she was teaching me so that when the time came and I had the opportunity to be a little more creative and go out on on my own space within the customers, um, I was able to do that.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: So Robin was great.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: I loved working with her.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: I I she was very um I loved her compassion and her empathy for for me and my learning.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, again, directing me or teaching me of why we may have wanted to go in a certain direction or why we may not want to go in another direction.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: It was all it was all really, you know, a great learning for me and it it it started my career, you know, we're we were winning fragrance awards a lot um in under her tutelage.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess in probably oh four or five, she decided to leave.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: And the person who took over, who is also a really, a really strong um leader, was like Mark, you know, you know fragrance now, you just do it do what you want to do, just don't come to me with one idea.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: So she gave me a lot, she gave me a ton of creative freedom.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I spent a lot of time in stores talking to customers everywhere from Miami to Dallas to Seattle to LA to San Francisco, Chicago, and just talking to customers around what they liked about our fragrances, what they thought opportunities could be.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: And through that experience, you know, really go growing partnerships with fragrance houses and perfumers and really giving them a lot of respect around what they do.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because you know, I think I've been a lot of meetings or in the presence of people who can be really negative to perfumers, you know, brand people or development people who can come at perfumers just because a fragrance may not fit you know their brand.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, perfumers where, oh, you know, why would you ever do this?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: This is gross.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you sit there and you're like, well, first of all, you know, maybe it's not right for your customers, but that doesn't mean the creative idea isn't bad.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: I always try to understand from each fragrance I ever smelled from any perfumer, even if it didn't fit my customer, what were one or two positive things I can say about the fragrance that would help them understand where I needed to go when I started to go, opportunities of that fragrance.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I I would always and I was taught by um someone, Ron Winograd, who was at IFF for a long time, um around how to be empathetic around perfumers and understand that how do you partner with them to really get both people on the same page of perfumer and yourself.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I've always felt the perfumers was an extension of the brand and not as much of a supplier.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: And we I mean for a long time we've been taking perfumers to stores with us so that they can understand how our customers smell because they do smell so fast and they smell out of the actuator and they want strength, and strength and power equals expensive, and it's gonna last.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I think through that process, you know, as I started to get a little more freedom and started to do a lot more with and and I had an incredible team that made it easy.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I had a really good team that was with me almost my whole career at BS from probably most of the team was with me from I'd say 2004 through 2017.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Most of the team I had.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but they were really well versed in fragrance too.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um and their passion came off as really understanding you know what the brand wanted, what the customer wanted.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it wasn't about developing fragrances for them.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was about developing fragrances for a brand and a customer to make sure that we are making that connection.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the things like Love Spell, which has become really, you know, a strong fragrance for us that we did way back when.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um but again, uh you know, a lot of times that fragrance, even internally, it's like it's too this, it's too that.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I understand why you know you may not feel it's right, but my my gut instinct tells me that the customer is gonna really gravitate to it.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it had a little bit of that sparkling through the citrus piece, but a little bit of that peach piece that really kind of took the rough edge off the of the citrus where you never that fragrance been the amazing thing to me is no one ever gets tired of that fragrance.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: You would think because it's pretty powerful.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I think start starting with things like Love Spell, you know, that we did um with Simura Eyes, and then some like Pure Seduction, which we did with Robert K, which is still really big for uh was really big when I was right before I left.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think those fragrances, like I don't always like every fragrance we do, but I know the customer will.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think at the end of the day, that's the most important thing is making sure that you understand her space and you're delivering to her needs and evolving with her based on what she's looking to do.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: So through that, we started to, you know, started doing little things on my own.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we did a lot of you know, bombshell's been a huge success, which you know I love bombshell.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, I love that freaking bombshell bombshell, you know, it was a great experience.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: I worked with Adriana Medina, and there was this healthy tension between us around I wanted to kind of incorporate a masculine undertone.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and she wanted to use a passion fruit note, which I'm not a big fan of.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but she was like, Okay, I'll use your masculine note if you figure out how to like my passion fruit note.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: So basically, those two notes really started to play into how that fragrance evolved to where I wanted more freshness, she wanted more of the passion fruit, and to the point where we got to this common ground where they married really well together, where that fragrance, you know, when it it's so iconic when you smell it in the street.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: I that's the one thing I love of like you know it what it is.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: There's no, oh, is it this or is it is it this fragrance or is it that?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: No, you know it's bombshell.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I'm gonna be able to do it.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, you can immediately recognize it.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: You can immediately recognize I can at least because I've used it so much.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: I know what you mean.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I I think you know that fragrance teas has done extremely well for us too.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I that that and bombshell like are two of the top fragrances in the US.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: If you were to look at um, you know, unit sales.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um and free and the good thing is, you know, we started the business, you know, Victoria.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: When I started, it was about a 200, 225 million dollar business.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: When I left, it's 1.1 billion.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I I felt we were leaving it in, you know, good foundation, uh, a good um kind of opportunities to continue to grow.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we've won more fragrance awards than any other brand in the US, um, which is great.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, from bombshell to tease, um, to pure seduction to other things we've done, I think the evolution was always about making sure that we're connecting with her and making it brand centric and customer centric.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: So okay, we gotta make sure it's right for the brand from a positioning perspective, and then we have to make sure that from a customer perspective that it's what she wants and she sees the value in it.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um and our fragrances, the fragrances there, you know.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think sometimes because maybe we're not priced at$100, I think there's always this feeling in the industry that, oh, it's not prestige.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, I I know we spend just as much money on VS fragrances um to to build them than a lot of other companies that are considered prestige.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, no, that's a really good point, actually.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so glad you said that because I I want to like share like my own like one experience with you because I feel like this is really what I've I've been so excited to talk to you because Victoria's Secret Fragrances, like as a woman and like growing up in that period, right?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like 2004, 2003 was when I graduated college.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know what I mean?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like I was like coming into like my you know self as a young woman, and I wanted to, you know, really start experimenting with fragrances.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember, you know, even uh in 2002, or I think it was 2003, when I went the first fragrance of the first figure, it was very flexible.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: That was the moment and that the fragrance that I had with that fragrance that stuck with me my whole life because for the first time made me feel like I wasn't a little girl anymore, in the sense of like I felt more sophisticated.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: I felt things like I felt beautiful, I felt sophisticated, I felt like I wanted to, you know, go out and you know, just do things and be a young lady, you know what I mean?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: And it was like that emotion that it evoked for me was like so brutal at that time frame in my life because I feel like if you know, fragrance can do so much for so much, you know, for different people, right?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: We can we all turn it into it so differently, but for me, it was like the confidence, you know, it gave me confidence.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: And like when I look at the 30 second fragrances, like that's really the if I were to pick one word for that's what I would like would stick to is confidence because they're they're amazing, you know what I mean?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like it doesn't matter if they're priced, you know, not at the 250 or 300 mark, like that it's you know, the quality has always been there, so it's phenomenal.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I think it's phenomenal that you know you did that and the brand did that and you kept those price points where they're at because you're you know giving people this opportunity, you know.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that's pretty cool, I think.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I you know, it's funny you say that like what you just described for me is the best part of my job.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because I mean, you can make a ton of money on a fragrance, or you can make you know win all win the awards we've won, and that's all great, and I love that, and and that's part of the business.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think the biggest thing for me is when I hear your story, the connection that you make to how it makes you feel to the brand and what it does for you to me.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: When I whenever I used to go to the store and someone let's say we discontinued the fragrance, and someone some consumers or associates would get really upset and you discontinue this, I meant my significant other.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: And when they tell you the story around why they loved it and why it meant so much to them, you start realizing the connection that fragrance to your point makes.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that was always to me the biggest influence and kind of what made me love what I do is when you went to stores and people would resonate around this makes me feel this way, or this reminds me of my mom, or you know, I met my significant other when I was wearing this.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: And those are the stories, you know, again, you want to make money because you want to be profitable, which is great.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: But I think we we've always been undervalued for I think the amount of money we actually put into juice.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the the reason is is we're vertically integrated.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: That company, you know, we're vertically integrated.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have to upcharge because I'm at Macy's 40%.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: So we can actually, and that's what no one understands.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: We could put more money into juice because you know, unlike Macy's, that's gonna charge a customer 40% or any of those department stores, we don't have to do that because it's all we're vertically integrated, it's all built within our cost structure.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I always thought that we were we should have been given a little bit more credit for the value we bring.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think very sexy is a fragrance that still does extremely well.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it still does really well.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my god, it's iconic.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's iconic.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like yeah, go ahead.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: That was one too when we developed it.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was funny because that that went a little away from you know, that that was one of the last, it was one of maybe it was a fourth one Robin did with me.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: But though it was funny because Robin and I were going back and forth because she had been on everything we had done up to that point were pretty like overtly strictly floral, like a white floral, a rose floral, an alhydic floral.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I was trying to push her a little, like, hey, let's try something a little different.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: And she's like, Well, if you can get me a floral oriental or floral woody or floral comfort, like let's look at it.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that has a lot of that woody piece in the back with a little fruity floral C on the top, but that flavor at the time when we did it was far different than anything else we had done, meaning it far away from just the overt florals that we were doing at the time.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think it was also different than anything else out there.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I feel like, you know, at the time, you know, 2003, 2004, that time period was so unique, I think, you know, and from my perspective, when I look at it, you know, I kind of like grew up in that time frame and I remember like perfumes and fragrances were not something that, you know, the average like 20-year-old knew much about, you know, it wasn't something that we were sitting around and are, you know, and having a beer and talking about because none of us knew what the heck we were talking about.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: We we just knew that there's a world out there of fragrance.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, it's people are creating this magic and nobody really knew anything about it.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: The Victoria's secret for I know for me and a lot of my friends in that like you know, college era was like, oh my gosh, you know what I mean?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like we were very excited about Victoria's secret fragrances.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I remembered it being like almost like a coveted thing, you know, between me and my girlfriends.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like it was like, oh, what are you wearing?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: It smells so wonderful.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, you would find out it was a you know Victoria's decker fragrance.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it was like, oh, of course it is.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like it kind of like built its own reputation within the like, you know, the micro communities of like I think the you know, the younger consumers of the time.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I experienced at least.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean, I think that speaks so much for what you created because it's still, you know what I mean?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's still there, it's still something that you can remember and then go back to and be like, oh my gosh, I remember this.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and I had all these memories tied to it, like you were saying before, you know what I mean?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's just it's cool.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: I like that.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and again, I think I think that the way the brand handled the fragrance business versus a lot of other companies who tried to do it that were, let's say, not department stores, but the more vertically integrated, like a gap or an American Eagle.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think the thing that the brand understood was the value of fragrance and understanding that it's the only thing that's closer to your skin than your lingerie.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: So they always understood the value and gave it the right um the right space, the right amount they made it feel compared to those other like stores, they made it feel more important that there's value and that you know, again, I I always struggled with I knew the fragrances were good.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: I knew what we were doing.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: We were working with the same perfumers that do great fragrances for other people.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: But I knew we were doing things that were right for our customer.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes, you know, people listen, I think a lot of the fruity trend that started was because of Bath Body Works and Victoria's Secret, because no one was doing it before either one of us were doing it.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: We brought in, you know, where way back when when Pear Glace and Enchanted Apple, I mean that was like in the late 90s, and BBW was doing their sun rape and raspberry, cucumber melon, where no one was really doing that fruity space.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we learned really quickly that that US market goes at those a lead and an aspiration for that, and how do you tie it all in?
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then how do you take those ideas and make them into prestige fragrances, which we were able to do with like a bombshell, very sexy, a tease, uh heavenly you know, that still resonates today.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, again, proud of the legacy that was created in the foundation we built.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that they'll do fine for whatever's next for them.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think they have a lot of ideas, and you know, I always want to see that business grow because it's really close to my heart and and the per I I really enjoyed working with the perfumers.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: I've been fortunate to travel with perfumers all over the world and find ingredients for Victoria's Secret.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: That I wish the only thing I wish we would have talked about them a little more because because of the space we were given and and sometimes the labels, you just you know, give me a top mid and dry.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of especially a lot of the fragrances that we were doing.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: From 2010 to 16.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of like trips that we took with fragrance houses that we captured notes you know that were gonna be for VS if we talked to them.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: And we just we use them, but we never really talked to the iconic nature of why they were used.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I wish we would have done more of that because I do think there's a stronger, a lot stronger stories we could have told.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um but because of space, it's like give me the top men and dry.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, yeah, but the top minute dry doesn't define how we made it.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: And you know what's interesting, Mark?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: Honestly, I love that you are saying this because right now I'm like, you know, obviously, like since I started the series, like I've been, you know, um talking to people about fragrance and just learning more and more about it.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: And what I'm noticing now is there's so many brands, and so many fragrance brands are coming out with this idea of like emotion being their book, you know, and it's like I sit there and I'm like, you know, just reflecting on the Victoria's Department fragrances.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I feel like we're trying to recreate the wheel here, guys.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like emotion is something that I think is always tied to a good fragrance, in my personal opinion.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I think, you know, and Victoria's secret fragrances are just like the most defining example of that because they all evoke something from you, you know, whether that's you know, whatever that is for you, the fragrance does that job, that emotional piece, you know.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: So to I'm all for it, you know.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm here for the whole, you know, new wave, I guess you could say, of this, you know, emotion-based fragrance marketing and whatever.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: But it's like, you know, it's not a new concept at all.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's and so I agree with you.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: I wish you guys would have talked more about it because honestly, Victoria's secret fragrances were literally, you know, amazing, like in every possible way.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I, you know, I never really heard anything.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like in the education aspect of it.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, like there was nothing like like I I personally didn't understand as a consumer.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: I just knew I loved the scents, you know what I mean?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: So it was like I would have loved to hear about, you know, what was the process?
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: And that's really where my next question for you is is that, you know, um, at this point in your career, you know, and like looking back on all these iconic scents you've created, like, you know, what is the mood board process like for you?
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like do you create a mood board or like how do you approach your like, you know, brainstorming um step in the I'll do it a couple ways.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, some of it's just visuals that I see that to me resonate with a sp a particular space I want to go after, that I, you know, that I want to create kind of have the perfumers.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm not very I'm not a big fan, and this is just my perspective of I'm not a big fan, and I get criticized for this a lot.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm not a big fan of benchmarking where you're giving a perfumer like, hey, I want like a light blue meat to Baccarat Rouge.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've struggled with that a lot because I think when you do that, the perfumers think you want something that's similar to that or in that space because they know they have to sell a fragrance too.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're giving them that benchmark, a lot of times they're like, Well, if I stray too far from that benchmark, I'm not gonna be in the running to win the business, which I get.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I give them a little bit more creative freedom.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I'll give them a motion more emotional space and I'll give them benchmarks.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'll give them, hey, I want, I'm looking for something that's a snow covered rock, the snow covered Rocky Mountains, as you're going from spring and as you're going from fall, uh winter into spring, as the snow's melting, and you're just starting to get the tops of the green trees from the snow melting.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: I want the freshness and the green of that with the first blooms of the peonies in the east coast.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do you figure how do you pull that together for me?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, how do you pull that together?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's cool.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'll work with them on that.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'll I do a lot of visuals, like um things that inspire me that I think um, like, for example, if I'm looking at doing something gourmet, I may like one thing I did that we looked at when we were doing teas was like for us, patrullies look a rough note for the VS customer, or it was, it may not be anymore, but it was when we were doing teas.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: And we were looking at you know, your cocoa mads and your angels, and whenever we took those to store customers were never not knowing what they were, they never would they would always be like, Oh, it smells dirty.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: But we knew there was something to the gourmand piece because they would say, Well, there's something sweet in here I like, but it gets too dirty.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: So what we did is we basically took a marshmallow, like we I have visuals of a marshmallow on fire, and I told the per I told the perfumer, I want a gourmand note that doesn't have that doesn't have that dank marginess that has the warmth of like a marshmallow on fire.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then without being burnt, but like w when you get that like that bloom of smoke and you get that first whiff of the marshmallow and how to blend that with like a spring morning where the you get you're getting the dew evaporating off the petals of the flower.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: I thought one more about and some people that drives some people crazy because they're like, Oh my god, you gotta benchmark it.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like people are asking one more go I remember when someone had just started in our business and they were like, One more what what was your benchmark for bombshot?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, there wasn't.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: And they said there had to be a benchmark.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, there was no benchmark.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: I smelled notes with Adriana and Jivadon.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: We went through notes that I thought can resonate.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: She gave me what she thought would be interesting, and we started to play back and forth until we got to a point where like, wow, this is really unique and different and really create a space that I think the space to find the brand other than anything else we had done to that point.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: And we became iconic because of the bottle.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um but really worked into something unique and different that if I was to give her a benchmark, she would have had to stay within a certain scope of well, you know, Mark wants me to between here and here.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: So if I go outside of there, I may not win the business because that's what his expectation is.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: But if I if we're working together and I'm giving you ingredients and visuals and we're working together, then we can find out what's that right spot that I know our customer will like that you think could be, you know, right for the business for the market as well as the trend.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then we develop that way.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: So everyone has a different way of doing it.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's no right or wrong way.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: If people like doing that, that's fine.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: I've just struggled with getting maximum creativity when I've used benchmarks.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: I I get more creative ideas that are differentiated and disruptive if I'm working off ingredients and visuals.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, I mean that makes so much sense.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I love like how you explain that because honestly, the whole time I'm thinking about, you know, we look at artists, right?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, fragrances of it's it's art, you know, it's literally like creating something that is going to, you know, evoke emotion, evoke some sort of an expression from another human being, and that requires a lot of creative freedom.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: So to say something like, well, here's a benchmark, you've already taken a huge chunk of creative freedom out of that story at that point, because you're already have pre-established notes, if you have these, you know what I mean?
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like if you if you know like the benchmark is woody, so you're gonna work with woody fragrance and internets or whatever.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I just don't, I don't understand how that's even a thing.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like, because I I definitely noticed, you know, um my point is like I definitely noticed there was a shift at some point in the um, you know, 2010, 2013 uh time frames, I think overall, because I was starting to realize like if I stopped buying fragrances, like I could do not, like I just stopped because I was like, I know the food that I like and I'm just looking to them because everything I would smell smelt exactly like or very similar to something I already had, you know what I mean?
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: And very sexy being one of those fragrances that I already had, and then something else smelled exactly like it.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: So it was like, you know, it was almost as if like if as a consumer, I felt like I don't need to buy anything else because I already have that in this other fragrance I've already been using for years now.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, I want to get your opinion on that is this redundancy, you know, in the fragrance in the industry.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like, have you have you seen like have you seen that a lot?
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: And and what are your thoughts around that, you know?
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's interesting because everything's a business, right?
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I think like baccarat rouge is a hot fragrance right now, and everyone, everyone, oh man, it's like if I hear someone say, Oh, I want a baccarat rouge one more time, I'm gonna shoot somebody.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's just because it's it's everybody want they know there's something to that fragrance that's working, which is amazing, right?
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but and this happened with bombshell too.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: I had heard through the grapevine where you when bombshell was working, everyone was like, How do I get that freshness to Tim Bombshell?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because it was working.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think baccalaureate, I think Angel had it, Terry Mugler's Angel, everyone was, you know, she figured they figured out how to use that cotton candy note with the uh that metal uh the molotal note with patchoule, you know, and then all of a sudden everyone was doing it.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think listen, I get I get you gotta make money, and if it's working, that's fine.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think the hope is when you're doing that that maybe the people who buy baccarat rouge wouldn't be buying a like ads fragrance because it's a different customer, and they may never even have seen baccarat rouge.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's what you're trying to do.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: I've done it reluctantly.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: I've said it wouldn't work and it didn't, and we did we tried it once and it did not work, and I knew why it wasn't gonna work because it wasn't our customer, but someone there was a feeling that we could do this, she'll see it and like it because it's not in a it's not in a a broader uh uh assortment or it's not as it's not as readily available because it's so niche.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think we can sell this in.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I know our customer, and these notes were playing a lot off citrus notes, which the citrus notes are really sharp and very green, and our customer struggled um at the time with things that were too sharp and green or functional, and these had that kind of feel to it.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, again, I knew I knew when we'd launched it it wasn't gonna work, but we were asked to do it to show that if there's opportunity, so we did it, and it wasn't my my favorite thing to do, and um but yeah, I think people do it because they think that you know you can get share, they're looking for market share.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, but that's the thing is that you know, I always found find that to be so um I I understand the necessity of it, you know, like obviously we're all here to make money out of whatever you're putting your time and effort into, but at the end of the day, like, you know, there should be a line between, you know, like I I believe it to be like, you know, ethics towards your craft, right?
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: Whatever that is.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's like you you have to realize, like as a brand, and and I speak about brands because I really like the point you made about how a fragrance would reflect a brand, not you know what I mean.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I really love that because it's so true because it will make people remember your brand.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_02: So you have to make certain distinctions, I feel like as an entrepreneur, like, and this is for everyone listening out there, like, you know, um, is you know, you have to make a distinction between what is it that you really are trying to create rather than just give somebody else and you know, give someone another perfume that's labeled something that you think is, you know, that emotion is being evoked, but in reality it's not, you know, like because you haven't put enough thought into it, or maybe you didn't, you know, sit with it long enough and really try to understand like what your customer wants, you know, that those kind of things, like I feel like people have started to cut corners, and I just think that's such a disturbance, you know, from the artistic standpoint when it comes to fragrance more than any other need and beauty or you know, in general, because it it's it's an art form, you know what I mean?
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like I said, it's just you have to you have to stick with it.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: And those are the fragrances that I, as a consumer, to this day, for example, you know, not even just Victoria's different, like Ralph Lawrence Romance is one of my favorite fragrances of all time.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_02: And it was unique when I bought it, you know what I mean?
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_02: Because I've never had anything like that.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I still, you know, to this day, I still struggle sometimes finding something that clean and fresh.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: And same with very sexy, same with bombshells.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so it's like you you have memories that are created, and you can't cut corners to create those memories with your consumers, you know.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I just yeah.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think to that point too, is like even Baccarat Rouge, which is it's a great, it's an amazing fragrance.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think Francis did a a really good job of putting together something that was unique and different.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think the interesting thing for me is like he was able to do that, right?
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: And create something that kind of was unique and different.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like if everyone was so interested in oh my gosh, we should have done that, why didn't you do it first?
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because to your point, his creative artistry told him that, hey, if I put these things together, I think I can have something really unique.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if you're going off benchmarks, you would have never done that.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the same thing with bombshow when we did it.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: If we were going off a bench bomb benchmark, we would have never created bombshow.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: No, and also it's like I want to ask you like, you know, how many times have you been in like the the process of like creating something, and then you know, you think it's gonna turn out a certain way, like in terms of like what it, you know, like the scent, but then it turns out something like completely different.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how often does that happen in the fragrance formulation?
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean it's happened.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: I I think the I don't we've had it happen, or I've had it happen where it's more like there was a fragrance that I really we that was real, I thought was amazing that we launched probably in I don't even know when, it's probably 2000, maybe seven or eight, six, seven or eight, somewhere in there.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um the problem for me was the fragrance I still think is good.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: The packaging was not the packaging and name didn't correlate to the brand enough, and it didn't do the fragrance justice.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I think there's times where the fragrance is really good and maybe what's around it doesn't work, and vice versa.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's times maybe we've developed the fragrance and we're like, oh shit, you're putting it in that packaging.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure if it's gonna work because that's not how we develop the fragrance, you know.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it when you can get the holistic view of you know the fragrance, the name and the packaging together, and it works right for the brand, that's when you have a win.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: You can have a great fragrance and screw it up with the name and the package.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: You can have you can have a great package and name and screw it up because the fragrance doesn't work with it.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: So it's got the whole and that's where like with Bombshell, I felt everything came together.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: When we started Bombshell, the focus of that was I want to make a fragrance that is iconic as when you see that pink on pink stripe bag from three blocks away, you know it's a Victoria's Secret bag.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: You don't even have to know the name on the bag, you know what it is.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: When we developed the bottle for that and we developed the fragrance, the goal was to be as iconic as that stripe on stripe bag.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: And we did it, you know, we did it where you smell that fragrance and you look at that bottle, and it's as iconic to the brand as that stripe on stripe bag was.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's it's a phenomenal.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's nothing else like it.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_02: I've never I haven't had the same experience um like I did with momshell in that specific type of fragrance.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like absolutely, I mean, you really hit the nail on the head, you know, with that whole, the whole experience, you know, for me as a consumer, because I still to this day, like if I want a scent that is like momshell, I'm gonna go buy the actual fragrance.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm not gonna look for a dupe or whatever it is people do now.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's like it there, you have to figure out, you know, as a consumer, I think, like what is it that you like, and then find the brands that are actually resonating with the idea of creating that uniqueness that you're looking for?
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I really want to ask you this question because this has been something that I think has come up in the recent years is this idea of layering fragrances.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I've like, I didn't grow up with that.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we didn't know anything about layering fragrances.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: So, like, when when did you notice?
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_02: If I mean, if you even remember, like when people started doing that, was that something that you um always thought we should do, or is it is it something that's like a more of like a new age idea?
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: No, I think we actually did it.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: We tried to do it, we tried to do it, we didn't do a good job of it.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: We tried to do it in 2000 and I think it was 14 into 15.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 14 into 15 with the you know, like your love spell and pure seduction.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like we we had come up with a way to layer fragrances where if you like love spell and you did it with vanilla lace, they would work together, you know.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it there's two things that happened.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: The consumer was really struggling to understand, like, well, what if I want to blend it with something else?
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: I can't do that.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I think we could have done a better job of understanding like what the consumer's perception of blending and customization was.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think I listen, I I know people have done it, they've told me they've done it where they put bombshow with another like love spell, you know.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I think I think listen, if if that makes you feel good and connects you to who you want to be, I don't fine with me.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm trying to do it all I do it every day.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: I combine things that like I'll get seven submissions from a fragrance house, and maybe there's two or three I really, really like.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it frustrates a perfumer sometimes.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: I start blending them together myself.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'll take submissions and say, hey, I like I like part of this, I like part of this, I like part of that.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: I want to put them together and see if I can come up with something even more disruptive by blending them together.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we come up with some good ideas that way.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um where we blend the things together.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I think I think the idea of customization and personalization of fragrance is an interesting opportunity.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think the challenge is how do you how do you make it understandable so you can educate it so that they that's mistake free and that they're happy with what they're doing.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: I just think it's hard to do it in store because it takes unless you're a niche store, but uh anyone who has more than a hundred stores is gonna be hard to do it in.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I I think there's something there because it's a that that becomes about personalization and customization, which you keep hearing, I keep hearing is a trend, which I get.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: I just think it's hard to do unless you have a really strong service environment where there's someone who can educate, talk to customers, and guide them and and understand what they like and don't like so they can make the right recommendations.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: And also it's like, you know, it's interesting that you um commented.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_02: I was actually gonna ask you about that, the customization of fragrances, because you know, what I find to be so baffling about this whole process is that, you know, how do you know because consumers don't know how to describe fragrances.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_02: Let's be real, you know what I mean?
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like unless you've created fragrances, you don't know what you're talking about.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like you don't know the notes, you don't know how they work together.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the truth.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_02: That's not, you know what I mean, not putting anyone down.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just you know, and when you go to a person that's saying I'm creating a custom fragrance for you, you are responsible for describing what you like.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: So you're probably maybe not gonna be able to articulate it even as well as the if you just let an actual fragrance expert create something and then you don't mean to try it because there's yeah, you can say something like, Hey, I like the first defense, I like you know, must, I like this, but in what proportions, you know, in what like, you know, where is the balance?
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: What that's the question that I think every consumer can agree that we can't really answer because we don't know enough, you know?
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so I really find it to be intriguing that you know, people are so, you know, like on this bandwagon of, yeah, it's personalized everything.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, well, sometimes you don't know what's best for you because you you're not the expert.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: You haven't done it before.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's like chemistry.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_02: You can't just go into a chemistry lab and say, I'm gonna do it myself.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_02: You're gonna blow up the lab.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like it doesn't, you know.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: I I think what what I've learned is that so 90% of the custom 90% of consumers, if you ask them what they like about fragrance or to describe it, 90% of them, the first thing they'll tell you is it's fresh.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's a heady white floral, whether it's a woody fragrance, whether it's a fresh citrus fragrance, almost 90 because we've chat we've looked into this, 90% of the customer, 90% of consumers, when you ask them about a fragrance, like what do you like about it, or how would you describe it?
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: 90% of them, the first thing they'll say is fresh.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: The second thing they'll usually say is clean.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: Then after that, you get into other things.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: But I I fully agree with you that I've struggled with the lack of vocabulary around how to talk about fragrances, what you know, and I I've talked to people about this.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: How come we can't like you know what a Pinot Noir is, you know what a Pinot Grigio is, you know what a Chardonnay is, you know what a Zipendale is, you know, you know all these different varieties of wines because of how they're described or how the grape is grown.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: How come we can't just have a language that the consumers can better understand so that they can describe more of what they're looking for?
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because I spent a lot of time in stores and the consumer, I mean you have a few who are really into fragrance and really can describe it, but it's rare.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: And most consumers are just like, I like it because I like it, you know, and well, what why do you like it?
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's sweet, or well, it's fresh, or uh it lasts a long time, but around the true essence of how it was created and why you like it, I don't think they can describe.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: I also sometimes run into like if you're a perfumer, right, and you've been doing this and you've been trained, and I have a ton of respect for everything that they do, and I've worked with almost all of them, and they're all amazing in their own way.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: They all have their own signature and their own kind of language that they they have their backbone of how they create fragrances, and each perfumer has like a different kind of signature.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of cool.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like I can smell certain fragrances, I can almost tell you who it is based on.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like it has an orange flower, if it doesn't have an orange flower, if it has a citrus.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: But I think the interesting thing is so you tell me someone like even I wouldn't say this, I'm more of a curator.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: I curate fragrances and help the perfumers have a guidance of what the brand needs and what the customer needs.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, if if you're putting things together and that makes you a perfumer Yeah, I don't I don't know.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think that that that to me from uh someone who's done a lot of training, knows the ingredients, and has been versed in how perfume fragrances are put together.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, some perfumers get offended by that.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, you're you're telling me anyone can put this together.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: So what are you saying about you know, my career and and my creativity and and my my schooling, you know?
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you're saying anyone can do this, you're kind of and I agree with them.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you can put things together and say you like it.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: Don't say you're I'm if you're gonna put two fragrances together and say, Oh, look, I could be a perfumer, it's like please.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, yeah, that's so oh gosh, yeah.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_02: I and you know what I see that a lot on TikTok these days, Mark, honestly.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I guess it's I every single time I scroll and I see somebody, it's some little like you know, a teenager or whatever, and they're just talking, I'm like, oh my gosh, please stop talking.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like literally, you just don't know.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_02: And that's okay to not know.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I there's not a single fragrance in my collection that I could sit down and you know, knowing that you know what you know and how much you know, and sit down and say, Mark, I'm gonna just describe this to you and it's gonna be perfect because I couldn't do it.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_02: There's fragrances in my collection.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_02: Most of them, all of them are just if they're tied to my memories and my emotions.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I could tell you this smells very um, you know, it smells like an orange or it smells very like crisp, what I consider to be crisp, but I could never properly, like you said, in the right vocabulary, describe to you what it is that I really like about the clean aspect of a fragrance.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what is it?
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: Because there's no way.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_02: There's no way.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's where I think, you know, I really resonate with what you said.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_02: I think you sometimes have to step back and realize that, you know, there are experts who know what they're doing.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, you know, the idea of mastering a craft these days is so undervalued and it bothers me because it's like, there's a reason why people have devoted their entire lives to a specific career or like, you know what I mean, whatever they're doing.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_02: And you you don't need to recreate that whole process because they've already mastered it.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know, just go to the experts, is my thing.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, and especially with fragrance, because fragrance is not like beauty.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_02: You can mix two shades of lipstick together and make the perfect nude for yourself, but you can't do that with fragrance.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know who believes that, but I know for a fact, even I know that you can't really do that.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think you have people who try one or two, sorry to interrupt, but I think people try one or two things and they like it, so they think they create it.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was taught a long time ago, even though I've been doing this forever, um, I even when I talk to the perfumers, I very rarely, very rarely, if ever, talk a note.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because even for me, you could put two notes together, like you could say, let's take the patchouli out.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: But maybe the patchouli is not really patchouli, maybe it's a combo of two or three other things that smell like patchouli.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're a perfumer and I go in there and say, Hey, take the patchouli out, you're like, that idiot, there's not even patchouli in there.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, but if I say to him, if I say to a perfumer, man, I'm getting this weird, wonky, pamporaceous note.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: And to me, it's it's not right for a customer to be rebalance that, then they could say, Okay, well, look at I have lavender in there, I have patchouli in there.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: I can now, you know, I'm not dictating to them their expertise.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm saying, here's what I'm feeling based on what I know or works or doesn't work for my customer.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: How do we get more of this or less of this?
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: And not saying, hey, increase the apple note, decrease the sharber.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's more about a fruity note.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: How do I increase that a little bit?
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I I can't be that metallic fruitiness, it needs to be more of a juicy fruitiness.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: Even if I do know the notes, I I I think when you you said it best when you start to combine a lot of things together, you can easily make a mistake saying something's in there, and it's just a combination of other things that make it smell or feel like that.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: That the perfume will be kind of you lose credibility when you do that.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, you know, it it reminds me of like, for example, you know, one really I think the best example for me um is you know, I'm gonna mention Vernonique Gabby here because when I first experienced her fragrances, I was because I love, you know, I I I remember going with my parents, you know, we would vacation in south of France and all that good stuff, but I was not a local, you know what I mean?
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't grow up there.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know all the scents and all the fragrances.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_02: She did, and she bottled that into fragrance, you know what I mean?
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_02: And she really did because when you experience her fragrances, that's how you it reminds me of my vacations, you know what I mean?
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I because she knows the feeling and she knows what is supposed to be evoked with that label, you know what I mean, of saying you want it to smell like an area of, you know, a geographical area that you may have visited or whatever.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, she knows that because she's lived it, she's studied it, you know, and that's where I get really, I think that there is this line that shouldn't be crossed, you know what I mean, from like the like the professional level is like, you know, you have to trust that, you know, there's a lot that goes behind creating something, whether it's fragrance, art, whatever it is.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, to undermine that process or to even belittle it in any way is such an insult.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_02: It really is.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I would never go to an artist and say, oh, I could totally do this painting by myself.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, no, you couldn't, because you could never replicate the same brush strokes.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_02: You what do you mean?
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so it's it makes no sense.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_02: I think the argument is is is just like another marketing gimmick, honestly, at this point, because there these people are just coming out with like dupe after dupe after dupe and pretending like there's something innovative going on, but there's nothing going on.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's just the same stuff, same sense, same experience.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why a consumer like me will go back to something like bombshell.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_02: We I will go back to very sexy, I will go back to those iconic fragrances because at the end of the day, they did what I wanted.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_02: They were fragrances I genuinely loved.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_02: I don't need to go out and find another one.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's like things some sometimes things are timeless, is my point.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I think fragrance is a wonderful example of that.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know, this this niche of beauty.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's timeless.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's supposed to make you feel like, you know, 10 years from now, I can still be using the scent and I will still love it 10 years from now.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: So that's it's about when you get back to what you're saying about memory, right?
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_01: You create that memory, you create that destination, you create that emotional connection, and it stays with you forever.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's not it's not as if it it goes away.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_01: You smell that fragrance, whenever you smell it, it goes back to that point in time and a specific moment in your life or specific, you know, emotion, and you just can't get away from it.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I love about fragrance.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think it really makes a really strong connection.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen it with our customers where when they like something, if you discontinue it, you better be careful because they'll come at you in a way where, you know, you created this, I love it.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: It reminds me of so-and-so, or it reminds me, you know, of somewhere I went on vacation and now you're just continuing it.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: But I you know, is there anywhere I can know the sample because I I i I can't live without it.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_01: So those are the things that I think fragrance is supposed to do and should do it.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it's uh it's about emotion, it's about storytelling.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's the story you're telling that that fits your brand, but then fits the consumer who's shopping you that's that's relevant and authentic that makes her, you know, realize that you're doing it for her.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that she I would it's so funny because I'm also not a big fan of giving people ingredients initially.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't mind if you want to go look them up, but I'm not a big fan of giving you know ingredients.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_01: And some people go market, they want ingredients.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, maybe.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: I go so my reason or my my logic of not giving ingredients is well, if I give someone it's got patrole, it's got rose, it's got apple, I just created the destination, they know what it's gonna smell like.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: I want different, I want them to create the journey of what it means to them.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to dictate to that.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like if they want to know the notes after they smell it, that's fine.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_01: But to keep have someone smell it and don't I we run into this where someone hated a rose note and they she hated it and it's like oh rose, I never would wear anything with rose.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: And we were smelling something, and we didn't tell her it had rose in it, and she loved it.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, and and she goes, if someone would have disguised described that and said, Oh, there's a rose note, there's this note and that note, she goes, I would have never even smelled it.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_02: No, I I completely agree because I'm like that with Musk.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_02: I was like that for the longest time.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_02: I thought the word musk meant that it smells like a man, and I hate I I had the worst understanding possible, you know what I mean, of musk.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_02: And then I, you know, kind of came out of my bubble and realized that I have no idea what I'm talking about.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_02: And there's so many different ways you can incorporate it into fragrance.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_02: And now I have tons of, you know what I mean, like plants that have great, you know, notes of musk in it.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't even notice it, but it was just that I had had this one experience that made me just not like that specific word, I guess, to describe why I didn't like the fragrance.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_02: And then it was this bias that stuck with me, you know what I mean?
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then I had to completely redo that whole thing and go down that road again and figure out why it is that I don't why am I even saying that I don't like the the smell of something that has musk in it or something.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I realize I am very wrong, you know.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_02: So it really is very true what you said, you know.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that um it it's more about staying open-minded, you know.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think these days people want this black and white answer.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_02: And unfortunately, you know, when it comes to anything related to art and creativity, you're never gonna have that.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: So it's you know and to your point, or you know, it's eyes of it's in the eyes of the beholder if it's a painting, and it's in the it's in the eyes of the person smelling, it's in the nose of person smell smelling.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's that that's the that's the joy of fragrance.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: It it means something to somebody else based on how they smell it.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: And uh again, to your point, you may have smelled something that had too much musk in it, or the way they balanced the musk wasn't right.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_01: So you thought, oh, I hate I'll always hate musk, but all of a sudden someone comes around and figures out how to wrap it differently.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_01: Now you may never have smelled that because you don't like you don't like the word musk, or you don't like what it meant the first time you smelt it.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: But as it evolves and people balance them differently, all of a sudden you're like, wow, I I wouldn't have known I would have liked it.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I think fragrance it's it's open-minded.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: It it's it's wanting to make an emotional connection and finding out what that means to you and how that journey and that the dream comes alive through fragrance for you.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I I love how you said that.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's so well said, and I completely agree.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I uh you know I'm gonna ask you this question.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_02: When are we gonna have your line?
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, when is your fragrance collection coming out?
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I it's interesting you say that because I think right now I'm I the only way I'm gonna do it is if there's a distinctive differentiation that makes it to have a reason for being.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm looking into a couple of ideas and a couple of things that I think could be relevant to me, to the market.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm doing it more around if I do it, it's gonna be more around making sure there's a place not just to do it to do it.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_01: So if I do it, there's gonna be a story behind why I'm doing it, and a story that's reflective in how these things smell.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna do it just because you know, we've done a lot of great things with VS and you know, I'll leverage.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_01: I want to do it because there's an emotive connection that I feel is relevant to the market and that people can connect with.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, you know, spoken like a true master, you know.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_02: I I I completely understand that.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, I think that you should definitely do it no matter what, because we can't, you know.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_02: I I think the people who know what they're doing, it's like you have to do it because there are so many people who don't know what they're doing that you know what I mean.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's like you have to do it for the for humanity, Mark.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_02: You have to do it.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: I I I do it the I I mean, I do it of the joy of doing it.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing it if I do it.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_01: I want to make sure I just want to make sure that there's uh a place for it that makes sense and that there's a reason for people to like it, not because it's on top of something else, or it won't be because if I do it, it's not gonna be where it's there'll be commerciality to a degree, but it's not gonna be where it's based on things in the market for sure.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_02: That makes sense.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that makes total sense.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I've I've loved this conversation.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_02: I would love for us to continue this and do a part two because I just feel like there's just not enough time.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_02: I I want to like pick your brain more about fragrance and everything around it.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, for everyone listening, I hope you really love this episode because I learned a lot and I am just so grateful for your time, Mark.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this has been such an honor to host you and to even, you know, to have the chance to speak to you and learn from you.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I can't thank you enough.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, I would love to have you back anytime that you have the time.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, again, I appreciate you having me.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_01: It was a pleasure to do this.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: I I always love talking about fragrance.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_01: I it is a passion of mine.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I I appreciate you know, all the people I've worked with, fragrance houses, um perfumers that have been amazing to me.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, some great leaders I've had um that have given me space to do my own thing and to work within the brand to create things that are iconic for the customer and the business.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I definitely would love to do that.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, again, this was great for me.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's I'm always interested in what people think.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, again, any feedback if you want to field some questions that we can you can ask me.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm always open to whatever you want me to do.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I will ask the listeners, um, everyone tuning in, please send us some like questions so we can do a an awesome QA with Mark and really get some, you know, real answers because you know, fragrance is a very, it's a very complex world, you know, and it's a wonderful place if you have someone helping you navigate it.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that that would be a really fun episode if we did a QA.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_02: But again, thank you everyone for listening and tuning in, and I will be back next time.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_02: Hey guys, so I hope you love that episode.
• 57:55
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• 59:00
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