Brands Briefing: Harry’s turns to a drop model for its body wash to acquire new customers

Over the last few months, Harry’s has seen Scent Labs become a valuable customer acquisition channel. At the moment, more than half of customers purchasing Scent Labs products on Harrys.com are new to the site, Giselle Balagat, chief marketing officer of Harry’s, said in an interview. Balagat added that new customers are also purchasing items like shave gels or colognes, in addition to Scent Labs body washes. “The program is actually functioning as an entry point, not only into the category, but [also into] our brand,” she explained.

Harry’s launched in 2013 as part of the DTC 1.0 era, though it has since heavily expanded into wholesale. While the brand is known for its razor subscriptions, it sees a major opportunity in developing scents, Balagat said. The company works with a French fragrance house to source materials, and it’s hoping to grow that part of its business in the coming months — including potentially bringing Scent Labs scents to other categories. There is, however, an inherent challenge in marketing scents to people online, the brand shared. “How do you visually bring that to life, so [customers] understand [the scent] in their heads?” Balagat asked.

To help with that, Scent Labs’ packaging is distinctive from that of other Harry’s body washes. The bottle of Greenskeeper, for instance, looks like a golf ball, to align with Greenskeeper’s scents of green cypress, sage and vetiver. The packaging of Cold Plunge, meanwhile, is icy silver and blue, to mirror the experience of being in an ice bath. Overall, Balagat said, Harry’s wants Scent Labs products to be “a quick-to-understand thing … that takes you to a visceral place.”

The brand is also working with influencers and celebrities to grow awareness. So far, Harry’s has worked with comedian Francis Ellis and New York Knicks player Josh Hart on Scent Labs content. And it’s testing out working with different numbers of creators, usually 600 to 1,000 per drop. “The more drops we do, the more we’re able to hone in on the right combination of factors that work to unlock the most affiliates,” Balagat said.

One of Scent Labs’ buzziest partnerships has ostensibly been with Anna Delvey, a convicted fraudster who posed as a wealthy German heiress in New York City and was the subject of a Netflix mini-series. Delvey paired up with Harry’s on Redacted, which the brand says smells “just like that $200 [REDACTED] fragrance.” Working with Delvey helped “tell the story of a luxury scent at a great price and fit really well with the concept,” Balagat said. Delvey taped a video for Harry’s social accounts, using the caption, “Trust me — you don’t have to spend a million bucks to smell luxe.” The post garnered nearly 20,000 likes on Instagram.

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As Scent Labs is largely marketed on social media, it’s drawing a younger demographic. Redacted, for instance, has been especially popular among 25- to 34-year-olds, rather than Harry’s usual 45-and-up cohort. Many Gen Z customers find the brand through TikTok Shop, where Harry’s has sold more than 4,000 units of Cold Plunge and more than 5,900 units of Redacted. Overall, Harry’s is finding that younger customers want more variety in the products they use. “They will not have one body wash, but [instead] multiple body washes in their bathroom,” Balagat said. “They’re potentially layering scents.”

Harry’s joins other brands like Athleta and Lush in relying on buzzy drops to build demand. The tactic can have both pros and cons, marketers say. On one hand, scarcity tends to drive urgency; there’s a “‘buy-now-or-miss-out’ dynamic that compresses the purchase funnel,” Nick Drabicky, svp and gm of client services at January Digital, told Modern Retail. He added that small-batch drops are also a low-risk way for brands like Harry’s to test new scent profiles and packaging without committing to a full retail rollout.

At the same time, Drabicky pointed out, there’s a big creative and operational lift to producing “a genuinely compelling new product” every month or every few months. “There is a chance of ‘drop fatigue,’ where the novelty wears off, and each successive launch gets diminishing engagement and press,” he said.

For now, Scent Labs is still fresh — and retailers are on board. Greenskeeper has completely sold out on Target.com, as well as Harry’s website. Meanwhile, Redacted is close to selling out at Walmart, Harry’s shared. “We are, in the future, exploring Amazon,” Balagat said. “We can see a lot of people are searching for Redacted or Greenskeeper or Cold Plunge there.”

Even though Scent Labs is partnering with mass retailers, it’s not going to ditch its limited-edition drop model. The bigger retailers, Balagat said, have been intrigued by Scent Labs, even though it does small batches, “because they want to be able to provide the best assortment to their customers.” Online and in retail partners, Harry’s will continue to build out its existing portfolio, which includes deodorant and shampoo.

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