How do you choose your perfume? Which criteria do you take into account when purchasing it? Which information seem important to you? These are a few of the questions that the Ipsos Institute asked 2,000 consumers, men and women, in France and Germany, between April 3 and 9, 2013. Julia Brulé, Team Leader of the Tendances & Insights Department at Ipsos, presented the survey results at the 11th edition of the Perfumes & Cosmetics Congress organized by the Cosmetic Valley.
The first lesson to be learnt from this study is that most consumers do not care much about the perfume composition.
However, it is a priority for:
• baby food: 81% of the French people polled,
• medicines: 79%
• dairy products: 56%
• face care cosmetics: 55%,
• body care cosmetics: 48%,
• toys and makeup: 47%
• soft drinks: 43%
• hair products: 38%.
Perfumes and eaux de toilette are next to last (35%) in this ranking, right before alcoholic drinks (32%)!
From perception to purchase
In fact, perfumes are not seen as ordinary products. And when consumers are asked about how they view them, answers are much more about emotions and psychology than rationality… just like when reading a list of ingredients.
For 98% of French people, a perfume is thus mainly a product that makes us smell good.
But it is also a way to express our personality or style (91%), to add something to our self-image (90%), a product that makes us more attractive (86%), a daily essential (77%) that is “like an everyday gift to ourselves” (72%), and which provides self-confidence (70%)…
It is a “mixture of natural and chemical ingredients” for only 47% …
