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At P.F. Candle Co., it seems no scent has gone unmatched.<\/p>\n
The brand recently released its latest\u2014and biggest\u2014collab to date in partnership with Peanuts for the 50th anniversary of the Beagle Scouts. It\u2019s one of the first times P.F. has done a licensing deal, founder and Creative Director Kristen Pumphrey told Marketing Brew, and the plan is to make full use of it over the next year, with an initial run of 15,000 candles produced so far.<\/p>\n
In the last three years, P.F. Candle Co. has collaborated with a variety of brands, including Big Bud Press, Lisa Says Gah, and the L.A. Times. Its first collab, with TikTok in 2021, capitalized on trending recipes on the app, with candle scents ranging from whipped coffee to feta pasta. This year, in addition to Peanuts, P.F. Candle Co. has worked with the band Wallows to create a scent inspired by their latest album and with sparkling-water brand Aura Bora on a watermelon-and-chili-flavored drink. The brand also makes custom scents for stores like Boston General Store and Foggy Notion, she said.<\/p>\n
Pumphrey told us that the decision to pursue collaborations as a marketing strategy came when the brand became more direct-to-consumer and upped its manufacturing capabilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we felt like we had the capacity within our production line to take on projects like this, something unlocked for us, and we were like, \u2018Let\u2019s go see how many fun things we can do,\u201d she told us.<\/p>\n
With more than a few candle crossovers now under the brand\u2019s belt, Pumphrey said the strategy has not only been fun for employees, but also drawn new customers and increased site traffic.<\/p>\n
For a standard P.F. Candle Co. line, the development process can take up to a year, Pumphrey said, which means products aren\u2019t designed to capitalize on short-term trends. Collabs, on the other hand, typically take three to six months to develop, \u201cso you can really take advantage of the hyper-specific internet trends and go big on them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The Peanuts collab was one of the brand\u2019s quickest turnarounds in development, she said, having received an inquiry from the brand in February before its August release.<\/p>\n
When a potential collaborator approaches, Pumphrey said her team looks at the timeline and either decides to create something from scratch or pull from a library of unreleased scent samples. \u201cThe cool thing is getting to bring\u2026this third space to life by saying not only, \u2018What does their brand look like?\u2019 or \u2018What does it sound like?\u2019 but also, \u2018What does it smell like?\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The \u201ctricky thing,\u201d she said, is that collabs often don\u2019t live forever. \u201cIf someone falls in love with the fragrance that we created custom for one of these collabs, they\u2019ll email us like, \u2018When are you going to bring this back?\u2019\u201d she said, adding that she\u2019s excited to have more time with the Peanuts collab for that reason.<\/p>\n
Pumphrey said P.F.\u2019s main demographic has traditionally been consumers between 24 and 35 years old. As a 16-year-old brand, she said one question her team has wrangled with is whether its customers are growing up along with it or remaining in the same age range. Given Snoopy\u2019s popularity with Gen Z, Pumphrey said the latest collab is part of an effort to attract a younger audience, as was the work with the band Wallows.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIf [our base is] staying the same age, how do you continue to stay relevant in an authentic way that doesn\u2019t just feel like just throwing a bunch of TikToks up?\u201d she asked. \u201cCreating products that Gen Z actually really, genuinely adores feels like a really wonderful entry into that [demo] that just feels organic and fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pumphrey said affiliate and influencer partnerships have also helped the brand get in front of younger customers. For the Peanuts collab, she said that cross-promotion on social accounts, like @SnoopyGrams, which has more than 3 million followers, has been key to reaching their audience.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always look at a good collaboration like a Venn diagram,\u201d Pumphrey told us. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to go so far outside the box that your existing customers are like, \u2018What are you doing?\u2019 but you really want to reach their end of the Venn diagram.\u201d<\/p>\n
Selling the candles at stores Pumphrey described as tastemakers, like Friends NYC in Bushwick, Brooklyn, has been another reliable entry point with new audiences. At the brand\u2019s own flagship store in Echo Park, her team recently started hosting events to celebrate collaboration releases, with s\u2019mores and chain-stitching offered in-store earlier this month for Peanuts.<\/p>\n
Pumphrey said collabs have brought additional traffic to the brand\u2019s website and help provide levity in between product launches. The November 2023 L.A. Times Plants collab, which was inspired by California flora and promoted in the newspaper\u2019s gift guides, was one of the brand\u2019s most effective in reaching a new audience, she said.<\/p>\n
Next on the horizon is a collaboration with the band Washed Out, as well as with the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA, which will be released in line with fall (aka \u201ccandle season\u201d) and ahead of holiday gifting time. Another collab with the Redwood Forest Foundation is slated for next year.<\/p>\n
Following the Aura Bora collaboration (which was partly a tongue-in-cheek response to Aura Bora reviews that compared its flavors to candle scents), Pumphrey said she\u2019s excited by future \u201csensory crossover\u201d opportunities in the food and beverage space and has also been eyeing the hospitality industry for hotel scenting opportunities.<\/p>\n
One day, Pumphrey said her dream collaborator would be Vans. The \u201cHand-poured in California\u201d line on P.F. Candle Co.\u2019s packaging is an homage to the brand, she said, referencing the \u201chandmade in California\u201d label that Vans used to put on its shoeboxes when she was growing up.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my mind, that\u2019s at the top,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s almost scary to chase it, because then what do you do after that?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n