Are teenagers the future of luxury perfume?
Teen boy's fragrance obsession
Date
August, 2024
Author
Sophie J. Barnes
Teen boys and Perfumetok: what’s happening with fragrance trends?
Move over Axe, teenage boys have moved on to bigger and better things. Thankfully, the days of cheap body sprays masking the stifling scent of pubescent body odour are long gone. With the advent of TikTok comes a shift in new, never-before-seen consumer demographics for high-end goods. The latest? Luxury fragrance for teenage boys.
source: The New York Times / Emporio Armani
Shifting media dynamics have rewritten the script of traditional marketing narratives: fragrance brands are now competing for views on TikTok rather than prime billboard space or a spot in Vogue Magazine. Whether Jo Malone and Yves Saint Laurent were aiming for teen boys to become the next fragrance aficionados is doubtful, but nevertheless it’s our surprising new reality.
All in all, it’s refreshing to see young men and boys dabbling in the world of personal care. From the likes of Harry Styles' well-documented partiality for Tom Ford’s Tobacco Vanille to Todrick Hall’s love for Le Labo’s Santal 33 Eau de Parfum, there’s an apparent shift toward boys and men leaning into their more ‘feminine’ side. For fragrance brands, this could mean an opportunity to market to an entirely new audience. Inter Parfum’s vice president of product development noted that people in their late teens and early 20s are purchasing a variety of fragrances and using them more often than previous generations. And, according to The New York Times, teen boys’ annual spending on fragrance rose 26 percent in the year ending in March.
Marketing to a younger generation
When it comes to fragrance marketing, getting a foothold in the world of TikTok is essential. TikTok has become such a popular platform for teenage fragrance lovers that the hashtag #PerfumeTok has reached just shy of 400k posts. The quality and content of #PerfumeTok varies – from recommendations on how to ‘“rizz up” your teachers’ (translation: impress your teachers) to top recommendations on ‘perfumes to get compliments’, there’s a lot of content swirling around online targeted at the highly impressionable teenage demographic.
Fragrance influencers preach ‘scentmaxxing’ (trying to smell as good as possible) and give recommendations for different occasions: from Calvin Klein's CK One for everyday wear to Dior’s Sauvage for date night. While teens are certainly interested in products on the more affordable end of the market (dupe culture is particularly hot right now), there’s also an undeniable interest in buying the real thing. And the main reason seems to be prestige: there’s a certain brag-ability that comes with having the latest from Creed – especially when your mates are also up-to-date on the world of luxury fragrance.
As it stands, men’s fragrances appear perfectly positioned to capture the attention of teen boys. From cologne in bottles shaped like grenades (think Viktor & Rolf’s Spicebomb Extreme EDP) to Paco Rabanne’s Phantom robot bottles and Jean Paul Gaultier’s Le Male (housed in torso-shaped bottles), it’s no wonder fragrance marketing has piqued their interest. Words like ‘extreme’, ‘confidence’, and ‘intense’ adorn bottles and speak to their desire to feel strong, athletic and mature while design assets showcase the latest ‘it boy’ like Timothée Chalamet or Stranger Things star Charlie Heaton (often sleekly dressed and including an attractive female counterpart).
TikTok fragrance influencers are your best bet for tapping into this younger demographic. Their influence is so prominent that luxury brands are even adding TikTok reviews as video assets to their own websites. And if you’re aiming for gold, reach for user-generated content from the teen fragrance community itself: this demographic is far more inclined to trust others' opinions and reviews over paid or branded content.
