Through this article we will explain why this blog is about the Chanel fragrance industry and the Dior one. Why did we select those two companies to analyse their brand strategy?
When you compare some luxury brands, the established practices are to take a French brand versus an American one. However, we choose to focus on the two French one. Our purpose is to expose how those “Luxury Maison” have taken advantage of their “Savoir faire” through history and how they have marketed it? How they run the brand in order to make consumers feel special, unique, a part of the experience. Choosing two French fashion house was for us an opportunity to understand how can we sell the “Luxe à la française”?
Found in 1909 by its historical founder: Gabriel Chanel, the group includes the Chanel fashion house, Chanel’s perfume and jellewers’ craft. Chanel N°5, one of the most famous perfume of the brand, was created by Ernest Beaux in 1921; Gabriel Chanel was willing to design a perfume ‘which smells like a woman’.
Such as Dior was founded in 1947 by Christian Dior. The brand belongs to the LVMH group portfolio. One of the brand perfumes is J’Adore de Dior, designed in 1999 by Candice Baker. Christian Dior had a single directive: perfume should contain floral notes.
The Battlefield:
Another reason that have justify our choice is Chanel N°5 and J’Adore fragrance battle. Indeed, in 2013 as we can see on the table bellow J’Adore overtook Chanel N°5 to become the best-selling women’s fragrance in China, showcasing the strength of Western influences and branding on Chinese consumers’ purchasing decisions.
These two giants are rivals on the women’s premium fragrances worldwide market. J’Adore ranked first in four countries: Belgium, France, Russia, and China. However Chanel N°5 has a higher ranking in the rest of the top. J’Adore has performed considerably better than Chanel in emerging premium fragrance markets.
Nevertheless, Chanel N°5’s main advantage is its strength in developed markets, especially the US, Germany and the UK, where J’Adore is significantly behind in the rankings. The Chanel brand enjoys much greater awareness and popularity in these markets.
Dior brand have been seeking to boost its brand awareness and exposure in the UK market with for instance, a Christian Dior exhibition in Harrods, the opening of a beauty shop in Covent Garden next to its main rival and the revamping of its flagship Bond Street store.
In the US, recent promotional activities for the Christian Dior brand includes the addition of dedicated space for the new La Collection Privée Christian Dior in Saks Fifth Avenue, has helped to promote the brand’s values. However, more initiatives need to be done to raise brand awareness in the US.
Chanel’s dedicated US beauty website and activities throughout the year have enabled Chanel to maintain stronger awareness and a stronger brand image than Christian Dior.
J’Adore also faces in-house competition (LVMH group) from Guerlain’s La Petite Robe Noire and the re-launch of Shalimar, which is generating strong revenues in Russia. While Christian Dior is trying to boost both brand exposure and awareness across the globe, so is its main rival. In a following article we will describe these two perfumes features.
Written by Sophia Capo
Literature:
http://www.dior.com/couture/en_gb/the-house-of-dior/from-1947-to-2014
http://www.dior.com/beauty/fr_fr/minisite/th/jadore.html#page/home/gold
Dior vs Chanel 