The clever and unique way P&G Prestige Fragrances used digital media to convey the emotional impact of scent and as direct point of sales mechanism is central to this campaign. While traditional fragrance sales techniques such as in store test sprays and giveaways / sampling proved effective, we needed a new way to promote our top end products in a digital space – especially considering most customers now spend the majority of their time and prefer to shop online. We crafted our emotionally charged digital content into bite sized adverts that allowed for in-banner purchase. This meant that customers could stay on the same purchasing page and select their fragrances – under the influence of the evocative campaign.

The fragrance industry was lagging and one seemingly insurmountable hurdle stood in its way: the digital landscape. Why? Because you can’t smell through a screen. Fragrance sales had been in decline for several years. The difficulty lay in trying to convey a scent online. P&G needed to find a way to translate the experience of a new scent, and the feelings surrounding it, to the digital promotional space. We needed to romance customers back to the fragrance category and remind them how powerful and indeed deeply personal scent can be – all in the non-traditional setting of their accessible device (tablet, laptop or phone).

The Smell My Neck content was viewed over 6 million times, resulting in the promotion achieving an incredible holiday season.

•Fragrance category sales lift of 3% versus year ago

•In-banner purchases more than tripled the typical comparable benchmark

•View through rate (video completion) exceeded benchmark by 16% and CTR doubled industry benchmarks - extremely engaging for long form content.

We devised a custom video-led campaign highlighting feelings and emotions of smell. ‘Smell My Neck’ showcased blindfolded strangers experiencing and describing the unique scent of the person they were paired with, their physical attributes, their personality and innate characteristics. They forged bonds within minutes of the activity. The content was integrated into Allure’s social channels and online content, YouTube, and supported by digital ad units that allowed for fragrance purchase in-unit without having to ever leave the page. We leveraged the full digital experience with retail partner Sephora, resulting in P&G Prestige Fragrances promoted more heavily on site. By flipping the script of traditional fragrance ads (i.e. leading with emotions that were caused by individual scents) we appealed to customers basic instincts around human understanding and connection.