For the first time on BrandWatch I have decided to talk about my family brand - and not about a reknowned global brand. Because we have decided to relaunch the brand created by my father in 1975: 7 perfumes created by my perfumer father will be available mid-october on our website www.lejardinretrouve.com. Time has come to present the brand, its roots and its new positioning - for the 21st century. This is the first of a series of 2 posts presenting this relaunch.
In 1975 - after having worked for 30 years at Roure Bertrand as a perfumer -or as he often told me as the "king's jester" for Louis Amic the Roure owner - my father Yuri Gutsatz decided to implement what he had been writing for years by creating the first ever niche perfume brand, Le Jardin Retrouvé ( a year before Jean Laporte's L'Artisan Parfumeur). He had been fighting for years in his perfume critics and in his columns the growing power of marketing, its crippling effect on perfume creation and he had been calling for perfumers to be reinstated as creators. In one of his famous papers "Perfumer, Your Name is Nobody" (a 1979 conference ) he noted that almost all the renowned perfume houses that created perfumes for all the perfume brands did not even list their perfumers in their personel!
He wanted Le Jardin Retrouvé to be the proof that one could market excellent perfumes, using the very best ingredients (that perfumers were not using anymore because of cost constraints) at accessible prices - without unecessary marketing costs, like advertising.
The brand was a true success in Europe, in the USA, in Japan. It was led like a small family business by my father and mother (she was in charge of marketing and sales) and was often talked about in the international press. Not wanting investors alongside them, they kept it small and it finally dwindled down to a handfull of fanatic customers that went on buying year after year.
What did Le Jardin Retrouvé bring to these faithful customers that others didn't? Whereas almost all perfume brands either tap into seduction (think how men are going to succumb to your sexy perfume) or into status (let me flout my Dior or my Chanel), this brand is only about comfort, affection and reassurance. It epitomizes the protective aura of a perfume.
We have kept these fundamental elements of the brand and we have tweaked them to be appealing to 2016 perfume customers. Three characteristics of the new business model must be highlighted - but only two presented today (!):
- Le Jardin Retrouvé will only be sold on internet: this is the best way to ensure that prices are kept accessible. This has led us to work with influencers worldwide. They are the journalists of today, they set the trends, they link us with our customers.
- Le Jardin Retrouvé has commissioned an artist, Clara Feder, to be its Creative Director and to create the packaging of its samples. She has brought the brand back to its original idea - the garden I return to. Her pictures (and the names of the perfumes, each a symbol of a garden) bring us back to the imaginary gardens of memory that we all have inside ourselves (and as you can see below Yuri Gutsatz's name is on the packaging).
I will present the third characteristic - the most disruptive ! - in my next post. Stay tuned! In the meantime those of you who are interested can go visit our temporary website at http://bit.ly/LJRSample and benefit from our exclusive offer of receiving 3 samples from our collection of 7 perfumes...
