The planning and development of any new fragrance is a very long, difficult and arduous process. It requires that three basic elements, the idea itself, the fragrance and the package be melded into perfect harmony with each other. If you do that, it’s called happiness, and if you don’t, it’s called failure.
Most work on a fragrance starts with the concept or positioning. That drives the process and, thus, much of the time is spent searching for what we call that big idea. A lot of testing, exploring, money, time, and effort goes into that process. For once you find the idea, it is the guidepost, the driving force, that helps you get to the fragrance and the package. Unfortunately, that idea is often elusive and many times afler months and months of work, you come up empty which means you start all over again.
If you do come up with the right idea, then you’ve got to find the fragrance that matches that idea and that’s a second hurdle that sometimes becomes difficult, I will describe an idea that was great, and a fragrance that didn’t marry well to that idea. The result of this mismarriage is at best a short term success and at worst a total failure. So, matching that fragrance becomes a second key hurdle.