Marketing Lessons from a Fragrance Ad
What a Fragrance Ad Taught Me About Marketing Luxury, Allocation-based Wine Brands
Having worked in the wine industry for over a decade, where taste and aroma are central to everything we do, fragrance has never been high on my list of must-haves. Wearing a strong scent to a wine tasting is a big no-no, so it’s been years since I’ve worn fragrance regularly— in fact, the last "signature scent" I had was Hollister Co.’s August back when I was 18. Yet, recently, an Instagram ad from a fragrance company called Ffern pulled me in, got me on their waitlist, and convinced me to purchase their summer 2024 scent.
Here’s how it worked and what it can teach us about marketing an allocation-model luxury product—whether it’s perfume or wine.
The Ad That Hooked Me
It started with an Instagram ad featuring a hauntingly beautiful music video of Sam Lee performing the traditional English aubade, “Lemeney.” It didn’t feel like an ad; it was just a super vibey and atmospheric video. I let it play through every time I saw it in my feed, drawn by the music and the feeling it evoked. I wasn’t thinking about being sold to—I was just enjoying the vibes.
But, after seeing this ad a few more times, curiosity got the best of me. I learned that it was for Ffern, a small-batch fragrance company with an allocation-style business model, where seasonal fragrances are released in limited quantities. Once they sell out, they’re gone. This exclusivity and, admittedly, my FOMO drew me in despite my usual indifference to perfume.
The Power of Sensory Storytelling
As a wine professional, I’m keenly aware of the power of the senses and Ffern’s marketing was a masterclass in sensory storytelling.
Ffern invites you into an immersive experience that connects you to the seasons. When I finally got off the waitlist, the package arrived beautifully curated with elements that appealed to multiple senses and highlighted the summer season:
Scent: Obviously, the product itself—the fragrance.
Taste: They included a teabag of chamomile, orange peel, rosehips, rooibos leaves, bergamot oil, turmeric root, and rose petals, meant to evoke summer.
Sight: There was a print from an artist and a “movie ticket stub” with a QR code that led the Ffern “Cinema” which included a short film, a short documentary, and testimonials.
Sound: The music I had first encountered in the ad, which was still the most powerful piece for me, they eventually released on Spotify and other music apps.
Touch: While not directly included, the overall presentation allowed me to imagine myself enjoying the summer sun kissing my cheeks.
This total sensory immersion into a story about summer deeply impressed me. Ffern understands that when you’re marketing something experiential like fragrance (or, in our case, wine), you need to invoke the other senses to make the experience feel complete and emotionally resonant.
What Can We Learn from Ffern and Apply to Marketing Our Wine?
There are clear takeaways from Ffern’s strategy that can easily be applied to marketing luxury, allocation-based wines:
1. Create an Immersive Experience Across Multiple Senses
While Ffern’s product is primarily about scent, they layer their marketing with other sensory elements—sound, sight, and even taste. Wine, of course, has a strong sensory foundation in taste and aroma, but there’s so much more potential here. Think about how you can curate an experience for your customers that evokes a sense of place and season, using other sensory touchpoints. Could you send a piece of local artwork with an allocation? Offer exclusive playlists that capture the mood of the wines you’re sending? Include a QR code to videos showing how the wine was made? The key is to build an immersive, memorable experience around your wine that transcends the bottle (and surprise and delight your customers).
2. Lean Into Exclusivity and FOMO—But Don’t be Weird About it
Ffern taps into scarcity beautifully by using an allocation model and a waitlist. They frequently mention that once a fragrance sells out, it’s gone for good—creating urgency and FOMO for anyone who hesitates. Wine brands that use a similar allocation model can do the same. However, it’s important that this exclusivity feels authentic. While I eventually got off Ffern’s waitlist, I had my suspicions that it wasn’t quite as full as they suggested (after all, logically, they wouldn’t be paying for ads if they weren’t looking for new leads). Still, it worked on me! The lesson here is to be mindful of how you create scarcity—make it real, but don’t overdo it to the point of feeling disingenuous.
3. Use Storytelling to Make Your Product Part of a Larger Narrative
Ffern invited me into a story, a season, an experience. The packaging and messaging all tied back to the feeling of summer. This is something wine brands are well-positioned to do. Beyond selling wine, you’re selling the story of your vineyard, the people behind it, the climate, and the craftsmanship that goes into each bottle. If you’re releasing a seasonal wine or a limited allocation, create a narrative around it that taps into that specific moment in time. How can you make your wine feel like a connection to that season, that vintage, or that piece of land?
4. Let Your Marketing Be Subtle, Not Salesy
Like I said above, what really hooked me with Ffern was the fact that their ad didn’t feel like an ad. The music was the draw, and I didn’t feel like I was being sold to. It was curiosity that eventually got me to click through to learn more about them, not a desperate plea to “come check us out! Please? PLEASE?!” This is a great lesson for wine brands, especially those marketing luxury products. Your content doesn’t always need to be a hard sell. Let your audience experience something beautiful and authentic—whether it’s a behind-the-scenes video of your harvest or a winemaker discussing their decision-making process—and the sales will follow naturally. Sometimes the best way to sell is not to sell at all.
Conclusion: The Sensory Marketing Formula
In the world of wine, just like in fragrance, we rely on the senses to sell products that can’t be fully experienced until they’re in the customer’s hands (or, in our case, their glass). By creating immersive experiences that tap into multiple senses, building authentic exclusivity, and using subtle, story-driven marketing, wine brands can draw customers into a deeper relationship with their product—just like Ffern did with me.