By the time the stores doors opened on Monday morning, there were more than 200 fans, mostly teenage girls, crowded outside, and some had been waiting overnight, clerks at the store said. They streamed into a special promotional counter surrounded by live-size cutouts of Mr. Bieber, jostling for position and laying down the money they had borrowed from relatives or somehow scraped together.
— Justin Bieber introduces his latest scent, Girlfriend, at Macy's. His prior effort, Someday, was the biggest celebrity launch at Macy's, ever. Read more at Bieber Fever Comes to Macy’s at the New York Times.
I know his fragrance was the biggest launch in Macys’ history but I wonder if they’ve continued to purchase the fragrance. Hmmmmm
So long as he keeps making new ones, it almost doesn’t matter — that’s the new celebrity perfume business model.
“Someday” is one of the biggest perfume sellers of the (relatively new) decade. I have no doubt that many of the purchasers of “Girlfriend” already own Someday and want the “sequel” as well.
That being said, I find Someday to be an actually unpleasant version of the general teen oriented vaguely fruity vaguely floral trend.
If you have a young teenager in your life, for heaven’s sake, buy her (him?) a lovely Beiber poster, some down loads and some other fragrance instead.
Interesting — I thought Someday was ok for what it is. The Selena Gomez scent, on the other hand, did not agree with me at all.
Either way, this might be a good opportunity to educate youngsters on branding and licensing in general. A bottle of perfume is, particularly for a young person, a big purchase, to express one’s fandom.
Of course, the same goes for adults,and for a lot more than perfume.
I really do understand the passion which makes someone want every recording by a musician, to see every movie, or book or essay by someone. There were certainly blemish free, vaguely androgynous teen icons which drew young girls crazy in my day, as in probably every ten year cycle going back to Rudolph Valentino *. But they usually kept their attempts to rake in the cash to records (once upon a time, kids paid for music), concerts, posters, tshirts and movies. And only the concerts represented a really serious hit into a teenagers allowances.
* Except the very young David Bowie, who was for some a teen idol, and who was more than vaguely androgynous.
The Bieber Fans are absolutely crazed and will buy and do anything Bieber.
Last Thursday, I was “lucky” enough to have meetings in midtown NYC and did not have to deal with the mass transit craziness downtown on account of the president’s fundraising visit. Anyway, I took the opportunity and stopped by the Chanel Boutique on 57th and 5th. Since it was a beautiful day, I decided to walk to Penn Station, going down 5th Avenue. As I neared Rockefeller Center, I saw police tape demarcating the sidewalk, half for pedestrians and the other half for masses of kids (mostly girls) with a few parents here and there, sitting on sleeping bags, lawn chairs, bean bags. My initial thought was it was some kind of OccupyWallStreet for Kids movement. I was dead wrong — they were Bieberfans lining up all the way around to the TODAY show studios hoping to catch a glimpse of him prior to and after his appearance on Friday, promoting his new album. Some of them were already camped out there for days!
I bet even if Girlfriend smells like feet, it would sell.
Probably so!