Whose Brand Is It, Anyway?

So, with the support of Coty CEO Bernd Beetz, she took the highly unusual -- and risky -- step of starting work on the product while still negotiating for its rights. It was a huge gamble, and whether it paid off would depend, first and foremost, on Jennifer Lopez. If she were difficult to work with, the process would be a nightmare, and they would probably miss their deadline. If she were businesslike, then they'd have a shot at coming in on time.

In late December 2001, Walsh, understandably apprehensive, showed up for her first meeting with Lopez at the Four Seasons Hotel in Milan. "I went to her hotel room, and she came out in a bathrobe," Walsh recalls. "We shook hands, and I said, 'Jennifer, you know, I'm here to talk to you about developing your fragrance.' She said, 'Oh, great! Smell me."

The meeting lasted for about two hours. Also in attendance were Sweetface's head of licensing, Chip Rosen, and Lopez's ever-present manager, Medina. Much of the discussion centered on the bottle. Walsh had brought drawings of some designs, none of which Lopez liked. Walsh suggested that Lopez walk around the hotel suite and pick out objects -- a light fixture, a vase -- whose shapes appealed to her. About half an hour later, Walsh was able to sit down and sketch a new shape based on Lopez's comments and observations. "That's it," Lopez said. "That's the bottle." It was, many people later noted, a shape that bore a striking resemblance to Lopez's own famous figure.

The two women also talked about the fragrance itself. Lopez, it turned out, was a bit of a "nose," as they say in the industry. She also had a clear idea of what she wanted -- she liked the smell of clean, soapy skin. Walsh asked her about other scents that appealed to her, and she mentioned vanilla and grapefruit. Walsh says she got enough out of the conversation to start the development process.

Although Walsh was pleasantly surprised that the meeting was so productive, she still felt a bit nervous when she left. Lopez clearly intended to be deeply involved in every aspect of the project. At first, Walsh wasn't sure whether that would help or hinder, but her anxiety soon dissipated. "The second meeting and the third meeting, it just got progressively better and faster," Walsh says. "That's mainly because she knows what she wants. She doesn't look back."

In the world of big-time perfume, producing a fragrance is much like coming up with an advertising campaign -- only using fragrance houses instead of advertising firms. The project leader contacts the houses, describes what he or she is looking for, and asks them to submit samples. A few samples are chosen and then refined until one emerges as the winner. In this case, Walsh told the houses that Jennifer Lopez was the celebrity behind the fragrance; that she loved the smell of freshly scrubbed skin; and that the target market would be young women from 15 to 25 -- an important consideration. To appeal to a 15-year-old, fragrances generally need a pleasing, unsophisticated, somewhat fruity or floral top note. That's followed by the "heart," which is the smell after the scent has been on the skin for 15 or 20 minutes, and then the dry down several hours later. Lopez wanted the dry down of her fragrance to smell fresh, clean, and a little soapy -- like her skin just after a shower.

In the end, it was Lopez's call. Walsh would collect the samples, narrow them down, and fly to wherever Lopez happened to be. Lopez would try the fragrances and talk about what she did or didn't like. Afterward, Walsh would fly back to Paris, where she would work with the fragrance houses to make adjustments. Then she'd report back to Lopez, who'd respond and decide.

They followed the same routine with other aspects of the project. Walsh, for example, came up with the idea of having a J.Lo pendant around the bottle -- a little something extra for her fans. Lopez thought there should be rhinestones in the letters. Done. Indeed, they were able to agree quickly on almost everything -- the scent, the bottle, the colors, the box. The only sticking point was the name. "It was one of the more difficult parts of the project," Walsh says, "because it wasn't an immediate love."

The naming discussion had begun in January 2002. Walsh had flown to Frankfurt, Germany, with a list of possible names, none of which included the word glow. Once again, says Walsh, the meeting took place in a hotel room. In addition to Lopez, Rosen, and Medina, some staff members from Jennifer Lopez Entertainment in Los Angeles were there. The group began to brainstorm, and at some point someone threw out the name Glow. Someone else suggested Glow by J.Lo. Then several people said, "Oh, that's perfect."

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