With the pandemic hitting advertising hard, Hearst Magazines, the publisher of Elle, Harper’s Bazaar and Cosmopolitan, has been running a series of summits to keep key partners sweet.

Over the past year, it has held summits on health and wellness, beauty, luxury, food and on Friday fragrance — the latter in partnership with The Fragrance Foundation for World Fragrance Day “to help inform the market at a time when things are really unclear and uncertain.”

“Outside of what our teams produce every day, we know that our customers are craving a better understanding of what’s going on in the minds of the millions of consumers we engage with each day. So during the pandemic (a time when brands and retailers need all the support that they can get), Hearst committed to a regular schedule of deep, thoughtful research projects on key topics of interest to our clients,” said chief marketing officer Todd Haskell.

“We share this research with our creative teams to inform and inspire content ideas, and we convene large virtual gatherings of clients with authoritative, independent research partners. We share what we learned, the implications for brands, and host a discussion with our key editorial leaders on how this information will inform editorial coverage in the months ahead.”

Among the data on fragrance, Hearst found that 84 percent of consumers always go for their signature fragrance — but they could be convinced to try something new — while 60 percent of Gen Zers turn to social media for fragrance discovery. Three-quarters of daily fragrance users are wearing fragrance just as often or even more often than they were pre-pandemic.

Earlier in the pandemic, Hearst offered brands free PSA ads in Harper’s Bazaar, Elle and Marie Claire’s summer issues and around 80 — including Armani, Coach, Gucci, Chanel, Cartier, Carolina Herrera, Coty and Unilever — signed up. As well as assisting brands, the 80-plus ads will no doubt help thicken up the issues at a time when paid-for advertising in the entire media industry is struggling.

For more, see:

One Year In: Amid Mass Layoffs, Boutique PR Agencies Bloom

Alexi McCammond Is No Longer Heading to Teen Vogue

The Los Angeles Times’ Image Magazine Makes Print Comeback

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