Hermessence – inconsistent brand-story?
Yesterday S and I went to give the sales a cursory look-over. We wandered into Hermes, which doesn’t go on sale until later, but got intrigued by their new range of perfumes, called Hermessence.
Hermessence, the sales assistant was quick to point out, is only available through Hermes shops, unlike the other Hermes fragrance lines, which are also available elsewhere (presumably department stores, specialty retailers, online etc.). It’s also charged at a considerable premium to other Hermes fragrances – in the order of 50% – 100% more.
The strategy is redolent of Armani’s Prive fragrance strategy almost to the point of flattery. And you can understand why these premium brands might want to have their cake (mass-market dissemination) and eat it too (have a fragrance “brand” that speaks more directly to their couture clients).
But I wonder if the internal logic of these ventures matters, because it is not much good. To me, there’s a disconnect between the “official” story and the product itself.
You see, it seems to me that any luxury house would be disincentivised from putting its best juice recipes into something very niche, with a small number of doors and a prohibitive price point. There would always be way more money in the mass road, justifying development time and an investment in quality. If you have a fantastic, winner perfume, you’d want it in as many doors as you could without sacrificing your image, at a price point that spoke to middle income earners. Not tucked away in the back of your company stores that hardly anyone visits.
The endpoint to this logic is, of course, that the “exclusive” perfume is almost certainly an inferior item. Anything that was really really good would be saved fro the masses, leaving your second-bests for the exclusive line. Certainly, Hermessence seems that way to me. The fragrances in themselves are well crafted (Jean Claude Ellena is a wonderful nose) but they just aren’t at the level of sophistication of, say, Terre D’Hermes or Un Jardin Sur Le Nil. What you can say is that they are distinctive and intriguing – they just don’t have rock star quality.
The consumer’s logic tells them that it’s more expensive and more exclusive – perhaps that is enough to justify the price point and the venture. And the distinctiveness may be enough to make them noteworthy, so that buyers can project their good taste to others. But I, for one, smell a little bit too much opportunism and inconsistency. If part of the story I am supposed to tell myself is that these fragrances are “better” than the other Hermes fragrances that are significantly cheaper, I don’t buy it.
