Christina Aguilera rocked the Beauty Arcade at Macy’s Herald Square in Manhattan with the in-store appearance for the launch of her newest scent, Inspire.
It was the songstress’ first personal appearance for a fragrance and some 300 people lined up at the store Tuesday afternoon to have their bottles signed between 5 and 6 p.m.
“We had a very strong week at Herald Square,” said Donald Loftus, president and chief executive officer of Aguilera’s fragrance licensee, P&G Prestige Products Inc. “We had the biggest fragrance launch we’ve ever had there.” Loftus noted that Aguilera mobilized her huge fan base for the event. “She is incredibly talented, a delightful person and very gracious with the crowd,” he observed.
“It’s going to be very successful,” René Dominik, associate marketing director for lifestyle fragrances at P&G Prestige Products, said of Inspire. “A lot of customers were telling me they love the fragrance.”
Dominik noted that Aguilera had confirmed she will do a second personal appearance for the fragrance at Macy’s in Los Angeles in December.
P&G does not break out sales results, but industry sources estimate that Aguilera’s new fragrance generated about $50,000 in retail sales over the holiday weekend in the Herald Square flagship alone. Estimates were not available for the final tally at Tuesday’s appearance, but there was a sellout of 500 special $200 packs created for the event, according to sources.
Meanwhile, P&G was also launching its Dolce & Gabbana masterbrand, The One and The One for Men, in the Broadway side of the building.
Inspire, which is carried at about 1,000 doors — many of which are Macy’s with selected Dillard’s sprinkled in — is expected to remain in this distribution network until after the holidays, when it is to expand into wider distribution.
Plans call for Inspire to follow the distribution strategy used for a number of other companies’ celebrity scents and make its way into midtier retailers and eventually into mass market distribution in the next couple of years.
