When Dove bottled the scent of its Original Beauty Bar into a limited-edition fine fragrance last month, it took the 69-year-old cleansing product off bathroom shelves and gave people a new way to experience it.
But the most interesting aspect of the limited-edition Dove Original Fragrance is not that the Unilever-owned body and hair care brand launched its first perfume, it is what that fragrance can do, and has done, for the hero product it already sells.
A fragrance that reminds people how much they love the smell of Dove’s Original Beauty Bar can be a powerful advertisement for the bar sitting on the supermarket shelf.
Today, there is so much chatter competing for people’s attention. Brands keep adding to it, then wonder why getting noticed is difficult.
A physical product gives people something to turn towards. Instead of asking them to watch an advert, you give them something worth talking about.
You can see versions of this thinking elsewhere. Food processing brand Heinz worked with resale platform thredUP in 2022 on a collection of ketchup-stained clothes, called the Heinz Vintage Drip.
The appeal was not that Heinz had suddenly become a fashion business. The clothes made the ketchup the story.
For established beauty brands, this opportunity is especially interesting. They already have products people know intimately, sometimes from childhood.
So a limited drop can make those familiar things feel exciting again, creating fresh buzz that leads to lasting sales. But how can beauty brands do it?
Dove’s limited-edition fragrance sold out instantly because they likely did not make that many – instead, they were using it to draw attention to the hero
The limited edition beauty product drop is the communications
The Heinz clothes drop worked because getting ketchup down the front of your top is a recognisable part of eating the condiment. The stain is the joke.
You could find it funny without having any desire to wear the clothes, and you would still have spent a moment thinking about ketchup.
Dove’s limited-edition fine fragrance shows how
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