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Flankerisation : From 1 million to Lady Million

Dernière mise à jour : 8 déc. 2021

Have you ever stumbled upon a perfume with a familiar name, familiar bottle and a slight decline in smell from one you’ve known before ? This is what we call the “flankerisation” phenomenon and it has become the major activity of today's businesses, which capitalize on a name, a bottle, and a muse and flood the market with perfumes that have the same name but differ in many olfactory ways.

Flankers who share the same DNA have become very common in the marketing process of commercial brands such as Paco Rabanne.


Some perfumes have become an important part of the brand’s identity due to their immense success. This has been the case with the best-seller “1 Million” from Paco Rabanne, commercialised in 2008 by the Spanish group Puig, with more than 10 million perfume bottles sold and 120 millions euros generated, both in only two years. This is HUGE!

So what made it so popular at first?

“1 Million” is a masculine perfume, with scents reminding us of oriental notes, such as amber and spice, hence making the perfume a sensual and manly juice. If you look closely at the 1 Million scent, you'll notice a stamped emblem with a "Wild West" feel to it, referring to the Gold Rush, and which explains the gold ingot shape of the bottle. 1 million was said to be “ideal” for pompous male personalities who enjoy being noticed and who are confident.

As Anne Flipo said in the last interview, one of the key successes to a perfume on an olfactive note is to make it “large and sensual”, a perfectly mastered goal by Paco Rabanne.


Due to its immense success, Paco Rabanne naturally wanted to decline the perfume into a feminine version. This marketing strategy is very effective in order to reach a large audience straight away. Ideed, “1 Million” ‘s notoriety was not only present amongst men. Any woman at the time had assimilated this new smell to seduction, as it became, especially at the time when I was in high school, the go-to scent for men to have. It was clear from the beginning of 1 million’s success that women would want a similar seduction weapon, and from a business point of view, this was a great opportunity for Paco Rabanne to create 1 million’s flanker two years later in 2010 : Lady Million.


Other than the name, we can straight away notice some slight similarities and differences between Lady Million and the master fragrance, 1 Million.

First starting with Lady Million’s bottle-shape, the ingot is transformed into a diamond, half metal plate, half tassel to recall the famous dresses of the great couturier. The diamond-shaped perfume bottle is an allusion to Lady Million's multi-faceted personality, which the designer describes as "ultra-feminine, determined, [...] daring, vivacious, and natural," and which is portrayed in the campaign by Dree Hemingway, a model and great-granddaughter of writer Ernest.


Second, in terms of fragrance, Lady Million is woody floral, with bigarade, a hint of raspberry and orange blossom on a background of jasmine sambac, gardenia and a note of patchouli. For its creators, Anne Flipo, Béatrice Piquet and Dominique Ropion, "this fragrance had to be as charismatic, with a signature as obvious and immediate as One Million, without imagining a direct olfactory link.”

Paco Rabanne has highly successfully managed to market Lady Million, partially thanks to the initial investment made for “1 million”’s launching campaign. Lady Million’s journey shall nevertheless not stop here! Paco Rabanne has continued creating new sequels to Lady Million, such as “Lady Million Privé” and more recently “Lady Million Fabulous”, both apparently conserving oriental and rich notes.


I hope you enjoyed this article, and I cannot wait to try these new flankers and review them for you!

By Clara O'Mahony

28/11/2021

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