Swiss Arabian in multi-million branding exercise

Swiss Arabian Perfumes Group is padding their branding efforts by investing Dh6 million to Dh8m in marketing to focus on developing its image and brand awareness.

Top executives, representing the 36-year-old brand, said that it is concentrating on developing a marketing mix that would target GCC nationals, especially females aged between 25 and 35.

According to a focus group conducted by the perfume manufacturer, most respondents were resistant to changing the brand name, yet, many were hesitant in identifying the brand with its core product, perfumes.

"We concluded that instead of spending effort and huge budgets on a re-branding exercise, we would push for brand awareness," said Nabeel Hussain Adam Ali, Director, Swiss Arabian Perfumes Group.

The newly introduced brand marketing campaign is expected to include below-the-line as well as above-the-line spend, targeting niche audiences, mainly the local consumers who seek traditional fragrances.

"In the UAE and in Qatar, our target audience is a mix of Asian and national consumers because of their social diversity, but is focused largely in local and national consumers of the rest of the GCC markets," said Nabeel Hussain. The group is among the top five in an estimated $1 billion (Dh3.67bn) UAE perfumes market.

The new strategy will utilise print, TV and online media. "Outdoor advertising will not be a part of our marketing strategy for the Swiss Arabian brand. Since we only aim at communicating with 15 per cent of the UAE population, outdoor will be a waste of resources," said Nabeel Hussain.

In the past year, outdoor has survived on fast-moving consumer goods, perfumes, jewellery and consumer electronics brands, after real estate dropped out its big money from the market. However, "traditional perfume manufacturers have gone extremely quiet in terms of advertising", said Nabeel Hussain. "We now have a better opportunity for a bigger share in the market than we would have had earlier. We aspire to increase the awareness by targeting specific audiences and employing sound branding activities."

The group said it currently enjoyed a 40 per cent awareness level among the UAE nationals, up from mere two per cent a decade ago. "In the past decade, we have been undecided on whether to change our brand name or not. This has led to an unsustainable marketing strategy, throughout which we experimented many different options. This, however, is a new stage and we expect our new communications campaign would help raise awareness levels to the range of 75 and 80 per cent," he said.

Meanwhile, the group, which has been identified among the mid-price range perfumes, has sought to produce new lines at the top end of the price grid. Nabeel Hussain said a high price-range was more of a trust peg for local high-worth consumers of traditional fragrances with large disposable incomes.

"Our consumers rarely bought products that were below Dh100 for their personal use. Those products only consisted 10 per cent of our product range. We, therefore, have introduced a number of new products that go from Dh200 to Dh350," he said.

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