Chinese perfume brand DOCUMENTS (闻献) has launched a sub-brand, Peace Incense (龟宝香居), to diversify its offering into other arenas of fragrance. The product shift shows brains, and the Shanghai pop-up that accompanies it offers a good look at some of what makes DOCUMENTS’s marketing the smoothest in the business.
Before we get into the fragrant burning sticks, step back and remember what made DOCUMENTS special in the first place: they marketed fragrance counter to basically all industry logic. There were no celeb endorsements. There was no seduction or sex appeal. They were barely even pushing a lifestyle.
Instead, products were framed as conceptual objects – each scent tied to an idea, symbol, or philosophical reference. And so was built the brand’s reputation for Zen-Cool (禅酷).
Why incense, why now?
Peace Incense offers a way to sidestep without straying too far from brand image. What’s cool about this is that Chanel or CK could never pull it off. They’re too boxed into traditional perfume marketing. But what could be more Zen-Cool, more philosophical – in the Chinese context at least – than incense?
There are societal waves lapping at the shore of this too. Chinese consumers are showing growing interest in slow rituals, emotional regulation, and low-effort wellbeing practices – often ahead of chasing aspirational luxury.
Neatly, stick incense also allows DOCUMENTS to open a higher-frequency, lower-barrier product line. By doing this, they can enter the daily moments of consumers on a more regular basis, and at the moments that matter for the brand. Incense is usually burned at times of peace: drinking tea, reading – the quiet, introspective moments.
The Peace Incense pop-up
The new sub-brand was dropped with a pop-up at Shanghai’s GATE M West Bund Dream Center in an exhibition-style event that drew on pared-back Chinese aesthetics. We’re not talking bright reds, and dragon motifs. Soft colours were used throughout. Natural light was brought into play. Wood, when used, was varnished and time-worn. The whole idea was to soothe.
Product was not the core of the exhibition. Craft was. Twelve traditional incense jars sit at the core of the exhibition. These are unmissable, adding a distinctly Eastern look to the space and telling a story. Jars like this are used in incense production in Fujian province in traditions that date back hundreds of years. The scents wafting from them contributing to the sense of calm.
Then came product: a range of twelve sticks built on classic materials such as agarwood and sandalwood, available to buy, but not pushed in your face.
What Documents did right
This wasn’t diversification for its own sake. This was a brand strategically picking a product that will strengthen the story they tell. Incense is philosophically adjacent to perfume, not just commercially adjacent. By choosing this direction, Documents reinforced their brand’s core idea without stretching it thin.
Even making Peace Incense a sub-brand was smart. In doing so, they can open the brand up to experimentation without watering down the core offering. When it came time to do this, they aligned with consumer trends and opened the door to whole new usage moments, buying whole new windows of consumption. In doing this, Documents has managed to stay present in consumers’ lives for longer than the spray of a perfume, or the scent it leaves behind.
