Halle Berry To Launch Fragrance with Coty: The Rise of The Ethnic Factor in Fragrance & Beauty Marketing {Fragrance News} {Celebrity Perfume} {Trend Alert}

Coty have announced that they will launch a signature perfume fronted and developed by Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry in the spring of 2009.

Not only is this news a consolidation of the celebrity perfume trend, but even more significantly perhaps it also shows how fragrance and beauty brands are reaching out to women from minority communities (see recent news about Shakira) with the more recent inclusions of women with African-American ancestry in the stables of celebrities that sell perfumes (see Avon Imari with Jennifer Hudson, Armani Diamonds with Beyoncé Knowles and the projected scent by Tom Ford fronted by Erykah Badu, still to be confirmed). Even pionneer of the new generation of celebrity fragrances in the 21st century JLo has picked up on this trend by accentuating the importance of her Hispanic heritage with her latest fragrance named with a Spanish name, Deseo, a facet of her perfumes that had not been explicitly stressed before.....

It is becoming PC to show ethnic diversity in perfume, a good thing in the end. It is probably good business, good publicity, and good policy.

According to WWD, Steve Mormoris from Coty said that,

"She [Halle Berry] adds another dimension to the celebrity fragrance market. Halle has always been a little more mysterious, not quite as open with her personal life as some other stars. Her fragrances will allow her to present another facet of her personality to her fans." [...]

"It's clear to us at Coty that the celebrity segment is alive and well," he said. "It's constantly being reinvented and refreshed. These fragrances are entertainment, but in a different way."

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