Cacharel scent woos teen girls

Parfums Cacharel is launching Loulou Blue – a fragrance for 13-year-old girls – as it joins the fight of the fine fragrance houses to reach an ever-younger consumer market.

Loulou Blue will be a sister perfume to Cacharel’s Loulou brand which is aimed at females aged between 15 and 25. It will be priced from £12.50.

Parfums Cacharel has reformulated the scent and re-packaged it under the label of “TechnoScent” to appeal to the younger audience. But the TV and press advertising will retain the same sexual, sophisticated imagery used for the original scent. Created by Publicis, the campaign features images by photographer Jean Baptiste Mondino which Cacharel describes as having a “seductive innocence”.

Observers say this approach is probably right for young teenagers. “Girls want something they feel is sophisticated, that’s the marketing principle you have to use,” says Jo Elvin, editor of the teenage magazine Sugar.

Cacharel is not alone in shifting its target audience. Givenchy has sold its Fleur d’Interdit perfume to 14 upwards for over a year. Parfums Givenchy targets its Ptisenbon brand of perfume and toiletries at five-year-old girls. And Guerlain’s Petit Guerlain is designed for babies.

The shift is partly a result of declining margins in the perfume sector spurred by availability of cut-price fragrances through budget outlets such as Superdrug. According to analysts Mintel, the value of the UK fragrance market fell 21 per cent to £419m between 1989 and 1994.

In the teenage target sector, where cheap body sprays have a monopoly, the market is open for low-price fine fragrances, says Cacharel. “[Young women] have more spending power, and the money they have they spend purely on themselves,” says a spokeswoman.