THE search for unusual locations in which to unveil new products may appear to be the reason why an Irish perfume is making its debut this morning at Dublin airport. In fact, Fragrances of Ireland, the company which has developed a scent called `Innisfree - the essence of Ireland', already has strong sales through duty free outlets making the airport a natural venue for today's event.
Innisfree is not the first perfume created by Fragrances of Ireland, but it is by far the most important to date. Established in 1983, the company now has an annual turnover of £800,000, with some 35 per cent of its sales overseas. Two years ago, Fragrances of Ireland initiated a range of soaps and toiletries called Naturally Irish, items which sell particularly well in duty free shops as well as retail outlets such as the Kilkenny Shop and Avoca Handweavers which have a strong tourist constituency.
"There has always been the perception that as we produced a recognisably Irish product we were only aiming it at the tourist market," says Fragrances' managing director David Cox. In order to counter this erroneous impression, the company decided to create "a mainstream Irish perfume that would stand alongside well known brands."
The scent itself was developed in conjunction with an English `nose' (a perfume consultant who specialises in this field of work). Floral based fragrances are currently returning to favour with consumers, so flowers feature heavily among Innisfree's 500 plus ingredients. Mr Cox has been developing his own perfume field at the company's base at Kilmacanogue, Co Wicklow, where lily camomile, rosemary and lavender are grown; oil from the last of these has gone into Innisfree. David Cox estimates that the cost of developing the new perfume from start to finish is in the region of £30,000 "which would be very small compared to international brands". A further £50,000 has been spent on the company's manufacturing plant and distillation equipment, together with cultivating the perfume field. According to Mr Cox, the new scent is one "which any Irish person will be proud of and will identify with".
However, aware that his business would be unable to compete with the kind of advertising and marketing budgets enjoyed by international perfume companies, he decided "we should make a virtue of our Irish origins, take all that was vibrant and attractive about Ireland today and, literally, bottle it. Hence the name, Innisfree - the essence of Ireland which simply says it all."
The perfume's name is taken from W.B. Yeats's poem, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, which is liberally quoted on the product's packaging. This was created by Design Works, the same group which is responsible for Irish tourism's new marketing strategy.
Giving Innisfree a definite cachet, David Cox has managed to gain a place in Brown Thomas's perfume hall, one of the handful of outlets where the fragrance will be sold until the beginning of next month. In addition, for the next week, there are to be testers and information material in branches of Ulster Bank, where Fragrances of Ireland is a customer.
Aware that tackling the market outside this country would be both costly and difficult, for the moment Innisfree will only be sold in Ireland. "We are waiting to see and learn from the reaction before planning a launch overseas," says Mr Cox. "We are, however, confident that the time is right to launch a product which celebrates and encapsulates Ireland in such a way."
