Lancome launches Magnifique fragrance line

The launch took place at le Grand Palais (Grand Palace), a beautiful fusion of art nouveau and classical architecture on the banks of the Seine in Lancôme's home town.

Femininity for the younger generation Hollywood star Anne Hathaway is the face of the new line which aims to epitomise feminine glamour with opulent red packaging and a crystal effect cap.

She is one of the new generation of Lancôme's brand ambassadors and the company hope she, along with recently signed Clive Owen and Kate Winslet, will attract a younger consumer group.

Magnifique's launch took place at le Grand Palais (Grand Palace), Paris, yesterday although the advertising push behind the new fragrance collection will not start until August of this year with the global rollout of the product line is planned for September.

The company has also launched a video web portal magnifique-women.com to accompany the product - 'a community site for women who make the world a better place' - that invites visitors to celebrate inspirational women by sharing stories and videos.

Interactive web-based marketing Such interactive marketing techniques are becoming increasingly common in the industry and include Unilever brand Dove's "real women" campaign and Beiersdorf flagship brand Nivea's "beauty is..." campaign.

The Anglo-Dutch giant Unilever was one of the first to use such tactics when it asked 'real women' rather than models to appear in its billboard campaigns asking consumers to nominate the beautiful women in their lives.

Similarly Nivea's campaign complements TV and print coverage with a global interactive internet project, asking consumers to share what beauty means to them by sending in personal experiences of beauty in words and images.

The campaign, which was launched in summer 2007 in Germany, attempts to convey Nivea's 'holistic' understanding of beauty through statements such as 'Beauty is Love' and 'Beauty is a Moment'