Why are there no perfume ads with models eating Hula Hoops and wearing Dr Martens?
It’s almost Christmas (give over - it’s mid November, I’m allowed to say it now) and many of us will be looking at our almost-empty perfume or aftershave bottles and wondering who to ask for a re-fill to land expectantly in our Christmas stockings.
Sometimes, we might even feel like being adventurous and trying something new - testing out a new fragrance to see if it suits us. But where do we get our inspiration from? Do the TV ads really inspire anyone to try out a new scent?
Personally, I scour the shops, spray the bottles onto those tiny little pieces of cardboard and desperately hope that I can remember which is which. Because, really, all those TV ads are offering me is a sense of ‘nope, not you. Not ever.’ And it’s not even a case of feeling unfairly excluded from this make-believe world of perfume-wearing models with very serious issues to contend with (have you seen the look on their faces? It doesn’t exactly look like fun does it?). To be honest, I’m not sure I want to be dripping in gold and walking on fluffy clouds in high heels or whatever. And I’m also not sure I want to see my husband playing his electric guitar in a desert with a gazillion black wristbands tied to his arms while an eagle circles overhead, licking its lips. Or its beak. But actually it could have lips because, hey, it’s a ridiculous perfume ad after all.
And it’s not even that these ads are tribal in any sense. They’re not about picking pop over alternative, or glam over punk rock. They’re not choosing sides. They are just all, frankly, fucking ridiculous.
What are they trying to sell us? The fear of being eaten alive by a bird of prey while we’re too busy trying to look cool in far too many layers of leather and denim under a red hot mid-day desert sun? (And why is Johnny Depp the face of Dior aftershave anyway??) Or are they telling us that if we wear their perfume we will become so simultaneously popular and tragic in equal measures that we’ll find ourselves running down a rainy city street chased by paparazzi while wearing high heels and a 50 foot feathery train, almost losing our life to an oncoming yellow cab as we pant, gloriously wet faced and beautiful while staring at a rolling camera?
No thanks.
If you can, however, make me smell so good that even the lingering waft of cheese n onion hula hoops are overwhelmed by a sexy fragrance then I’ll probably bite your hand off. Or perhaps I’ve been out running and I’m sweating like a person whose been out running but my husband still wants me RIGHT NOW because my fragrance is simply irresistible.
These concepts are what I aspire to. This is what I want perfume to do for me.
When I inhale the sample paper that a friendly sales assistant has sprayed with a new scent from my favourite perfume brand, I don’t imagine myself dancing on a velvety chocolate fountain in 5 inch heels to a new breathy version of some rock ballad (I don’t think the chocolate fountain concept has been done yet but give it time). I imagine myself getting out the shower, giving myself a spritz and immediately turning my husband’s attention away from the NUFC game on the telly box because I smell so bloody gawgeous. Why aren’t they selling me that? It’s SMART, after all - and that’s what we’re all told we should be aiming for in marketing (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely). You might be able to measure how many times you’ve been rocking out in a desert (probably 0), but is it achievable and realistic? Nope. And come Christmas, it’s certainly not timely - not in the UK anyway.
And OK, OK, I get that Christmas is a time for make believe and magic. And maybe I’m losing sight of that. But give me tinsel any day and let’s happily pretend Santa Claus exists and bask in our nostalgic childhood memories - I’m all for that. Just stop trying to encourage everyone to be ultra glam and endlessly cool. It will undoubtedly have the opposite affect and we’ll all just end up hating each other.
Measure that, Chanel.