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If you’re a fragrance fan—and I think we all love stuff that smells nice, do we not?—then you were probably pretty happy about Kayali’s shout-out in this newsletter’s 20th edition several weeks back. While I joked about that brand profile being enough to satisfy the parfumaniacs out there, I’m returning this week with another highlight from the Fragrance Zone. After all, you can never smell too good, right?
(To be fair, this week’s spotlighted brand is also a major player in fashion, as are many of our friends in fragrance. But I’ll take any chance I can get to highlight fragrance alongside fashion—gets the parfumaniacs off my back for a while.)
Generally, the brands that I highlight for you fine folks brands have enjoyed uninterrupted growth for a sustained period of time. But how about a brand that stumbled and recovered? If that sounds like something you’d like to see, then let me introduce you to my friends Viktor & Rolf:
Viktor & Rolf EMV Performance 2018-2023
After steady if unspectacular EMV growth from 2019 to 2022, with a slight setback from 2019 to 2020—a year that was, for most people, a real comedown in the whole ‘smelling and looking good’ department—Viktor & Rolf exploded in 2023, collecting $42.2M EMV, a 127% YoY surge. While there are many reasons for this growth, one reason is pretty simple: you can’t explode without a bomb.
In 2023, Viktor & Rolf’s Flowerbomb fragrance cemented itself as one of the vertical’s hottest scents. The product collected $8.7M EMV, a notable 21% of the brand’s total. It’s pretty rare for a single offering to account for that much of a brand’s EMV—at that point, it’s not just a hero product, but a superhero product. What’s more, this total proved a 126% YoY improvement, perfectly in line with the brand’s overall 127% surge. As goes Flowerbomb, so goes Viktor & Rolf.
Oh, and just to stick with the bomb theme for a second, the Spicebomb chipped in an additional $2.0M EMV in 2023, an even-more-impressive 176% YoY surge. Viktor & Rolf was packing more bombs than one of these newsletters! (You know, bomb—like when a joke doesn’t land? Like what’s happening right now?) Anyway, good luck getting through the TSA, Viktor and/or Rolf.
But who exactly was planting all these bombs? (Okay, that’s the last bomb joke—we’re moving on.) Why, powerhouse creators, of course! Defined as creators with >1M followers on their primary social channel, these types of creators are common in Fragrance, but overindexed dramatically for Viktor & Rolf. Take a slice of pie:
Viktor & Rolf EMV Breakdown by Follower Tier
Sorry to get all ‘trust me, bro’ for this one, but you almost never see 50% of a brand’s EMV coming from a single tier. Anecdotally, across all verticals—even splashy categories like fragrance and luxury fashion—the breakdown tends to be pretty even, with the dominant tier (typically powerhouses or micro-influencers) maxing out around 35-40%. So Viktor & Rolf are taking a bit of an unconventional approach in having so much of its (really tempted to say ‘their’) EMV stem from powerhouses, but this approach is paying off.
Look no further than the tier allocation of Viktor & Rolf’s top 15 EMV-drivers for 2023. I promise I haven’t manipulated this—does anything jump out to you?
Viktor & Rolf Top 15 EMV-Drivers are Powerhouses
Lotta big names on that list—everyone who’s anyone. I guess my Flowerbomb must have gotten lost in the mail.
There are many factors that powered momentum for Viktor & Rolf in 2023, across both fragrance and luxury fashion. For example, the brand garnered positive coverage from publications and creators alike for truly embracing its avant-garde heritage. If you plan a runway show around upside-down and sideways dresses, chances are people are going to take notice.
I’ll let these pictures, with all credit to Francois Durand of Getty Images (please don’t sue us), say a thousand words:
Upside Down Dress, Credit: Francois Durand of Getty Images
Viktor & Rolf Upside Down Dress, Credit: Francois Durand of Getty Images
I bet all the people in the audience felt silly when they showed up wearing their upside-down and sideways dresses. You can’t roll up to the runway wearing the same outfit as the models—what a faux pas!
The show featuring these outfits was in January, which in my expert opinion probably had something to do with this graph:
Viktor & Rolf Monthly EMV Total 2023
That surge in July, meanwhile, stemmed from Viktor & Rolf’s 30th anniversary party, which drew powerhouse creators like Camila Cabello and Shakira.
But even a brand at the height of luxury engaged in some good old-fashioned influencer marketing staples—like product gifting. Check out yet another line graph, which shows the EMV driven by the primary hashtag related to the brand’s fragrance gifting:
EMV Performance for #GiftedByViktorAndRolfFragrances in 2023
Despite flatlining until August, #GiftedByViktorandRolfFragrances fueled $1.8M EMV in the back portion of the year, ranking as one of the brand’s top 10 EMV-driving hashtags and further underscoring the efficacy of coordinated gifting campaigns.
Whether it was Flowerbombs, crazy dresses, global superstars, or simply giving back to its growing community, Viktor & Rolf tapped into the creator economy in a number of ways throughout the year, helping cement 2023 as a banner year for the brand.
If you care about fragrance, fashion, upside-down clothing, or Shakira, you probably already know that Viktor & Rolf is worth watching. And if you didn’t, well, at least now you know that Viktor & Rolf are not, in fact, those guys with the tigers.
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