The Smell of Opportunity

Food, Travel, Consumer electronics. There are very few categories that have been left untouched from the critiques of consumers within the online space. With the explosion of Smartphones, that reality is now expanding quickly into the mobile frontier so that consumers are able to view peer reviews right at the point of purchase. Mobile applications such as Yelp and Amazon Mobile have done a great job with this so far with Entertainment and Consumer Electronics/Media, now care of AdAge, it seems that cosmetics are joining the party:

Recap:

-Sephora is prompting customers to use their phones while in the store to look up consumer reviews at m.sephora.com.

-Sephora understands that consumers have the option to go home and look up reviews anyway, they might as well encourage them to do it at the store.

-Sephora will adjust its stock based on popularity of products or problems that have been reported.

-Sephora eventually plans to make all products scanable so that consumers can activate specific reviews on their phone without searching.

Full Article can be found here.

Implications for Fragrance Companies:

It is no secret that cosmetics, but especially fragrances, exist in an extremely competitive landscape. People don't generally buy these items because of function or even quality, they buy them largely for aesthetic reasons. Because it is so difficult to gain an edge in such a subjective purchase process, fragrance brands should keep their eye on this growing trend around mobile point of purchase consumer reviews.

In the meantime, what kind of partnership could a fragrance brand establish with this retail chain? After all, Sephora has 750 stores worldwide and is an obvious leader in the realm of mass market cosmetics. Some thoughts:

-Sponsored Signage. Sephora has started posting signage around their stores encouraging shoppers to utilize their review system. A fragrance that has received positive reviews could "buy" a section of those billboards to help promote interaction with their brand specifically in the mobile site.

-Sponsored reviews. Yelp is doing this already. Sponsored reviews are listed at the top of the page and often are highlighted so users know that a advertiser was involved. The key here is that the advertiser CANNOT effect the overall user reviews, rather they are able to push theirs to the top if the reviews are trending in a positive direction. Sephora specifically has not enabled this feature, but with enough advertiser interest, they would surely consider it.

-Include Sephora reviews in marketing efforts. Sure, putting reviews on your ads can be cheesy if done wrong, but remember way back when Pontiac asked consumers to "Google" the all new Pontiac G6? A similar call to action (and partnership) would be mutually beneficial to fragrance brands and Sephora's mobile destination.

-Join Sephora in encouraging feedback. Generally fragrances will come wrapped in plastic. Adding a sticker to those packages that encourage buyers "to review this product on m.sephora.com" would help promote more positive reviews for the fragrance. Additionally, if the fragrance were to use a redirect, they could help build up their email database by offering a coupon/gift for those who agree to review the product.

Being First:

Being the first brand to leverage emerging media isn't always the right option, but it is when it makes business sense. The above ideas are just a few examples of steps a fragrance could take that would put their brand far ahead of others in a space that currently is very cluttered with competition. Not only would this opportunity provide a brand with an edge, but there are countless secondard benefits that would come along with this: Free PR, CRM, feedback to R/D, etc