They are trying to sell me what?
December 6, 2009 5:35 AM Subscribe
Why do perfume adverts seem more arty than selling?
With Christmas coming there are more perfume adverts on TV (UK at least) but I might be missing something but none of them make much sense to me. Are they commissioned as works of art than anything else? Is there some deeper meaning I'm missing?
With Christmas coming there are more perfume adverts on TV (UK at least) but I might be missing something but none of them make much sense to me. Are they commissioned as works of art than anything else? Is there some deeper meaning I'm missing?
no, they are not commissioned as art, they are just by-the-numbers safe business school approaches from timid clients without vision. sadly there are more than a few agencies gladly willing to provide them with any tosh the client desires.
posted by krautland at 5:54 AM on December 6, 2009
posted by krautland at 5:54 AM on December 6, 2009
Perfume is a product you can't see or hear, unlike other products that rely mostly on senses that aren't best-suited for television (food can look gorgeous, other scents, like air fresheners, are being sold with pretty candles, or motion-sensing spritzers), so advertisers have to take a different tactic.
Since perfume is often associated with romance, I think that advertisers try to invoke the feeling of romance or intrigue through ads.
posted by xingcat at 5:54 AM on December 6, 2009
Since perfume is often associated with romance, I think that advertisers try to invoke the feeling of romance or intrigue through ads.
posted by xingcat at 5:54 AM on December 6, 2009
It makes sense when you remember people wear perfume to feel special and evoke moods and emotional states. How are you going to "sell" that feeling other than indirectly through art? "Wearing BrandX has been scientifically proven to attract 56.5% more attention from attractive and desirable men!" No thanks...
posted by aquafortis at 6:20 AM on December 6, 2009
posted by aquafortis at 6:20 AM on December 6, 2009
They're trying to sell an aspirational lifestyle, they want you to buy into the idea that by purchasing the perfume your life will be more like the glamourous commercial you're watching than reality.
posted by cestmoi15 at 7:09 AM on December 6, 2009 [3 favorites]
posted by cestmoi15 at 7:09 AM on December 6, 2009 [3 favorites]
I find perfume adverts hilarious - all that black and white half-whispered drugged-up sounding "I wuv yoo" rubbish. I can't think why the advertisers think this will help sell their product.
I suspect the adverts are aimed at the teenage and 20-something market who are trying to forge an identity, and if you can't afford the clothes that Boss sell, you'll probably be able to afford the perfume.
Whatever the reasons, all those ads are pretty lame.
posted by stenoboy at 8:14 AM on December 6, 2009
I suspect the adverts are aimed at the teenage and 20-something market who are trying to forge an identity, and if you can't afford the clothes that Boss sell, you'll probably be able to afford the perfume.
Whatever the reasons, all those ads are pretty lame.
posted by stenoboy at 8:14 AM on December 6, 2009
As cestmoi15 mentions, they're selling a lifestyle. But really this concept is not limited to perfume. It used to be that advertising was about "brighter, whiter, stronger" - it described what the product did better than other things. At some point (an actual time period I forget) it transitioned to selling you an imagined experience or lifestyle, pulling on your emotional or ego strings. It's most notable with luxury products, because the lifestyle they sell is much grander than just the comfort of having cleaner laundry, for example.
posted by Askr at 8:18 AM on December 6, 2009
posted by Askr at 8:18 AM on December 6, 2009
Almost nobody buys perfume without smelling it first, and cosmetics counters, Sephora, etc, are so full of different bottles of fragrances that you can get a little lost. Perfume advertisements are more about brand awareness than anything - creating a memorable image that will stick in a shopper's head when s/he hits the store.
Perfume is also something of a luxury good, so people aren't on the lookout for the highest performance or the best deal - which would be tricky to measure anyway - so a straightforward expository-style ad is unnecessary and would only lose some of the allure.
posted by Metroid Baby at 8:18 AM on December 6, 2009 [1 favorite]
Perfume is also something of a luxury good, so people aren't on the lookout for the highest performance or the best deal - which would be tricky to measure anyway - so a straightforward expository-style ad is unnecessary and would only lose some of the allure.
posted by Metroid Baby at 8:18 AM on December 6, 2009 [1 favorite]
Perfume is an emotional, brand-led purchase, like high end fashion. Check out the high end fashion full page ads in women's magazines (or the "Style" supplement of the Sunday Times) if you want to see how ridiculous it gets - a logo slapped on a photo of a woman with ridiculous hair running through a forest in fishnet stockings somehow gets sales.
If it helps, compare the perfume ads to lower class ads like car ads where a car is shown driving through a mountainous landscape. The ad isn't really selling the car, how good its brakes are, or how cheap it is - it's evoking an image that's meant to make you feel good about the car. It's a more classy TV equivalent of getting a blowjob while someone's whispering "buy a BMW" in your ear - you're going to think well of BMW after such an experience.
posted by wackybrit at 8:47 AM on December 6, 2009
If it helps, compare the perfume ads to lower class ads like car ads where a car is shown driving through a mountainous landscape. The ad isn't really selling the car, how good its brakes are, or how cheap it is - it's evoking an image that's meant to make you feel good about the car. It's a more classy TV equivalent of getting a blowjob while someone's whispering "buy a BMW" in your ear - you're going to think well of BMW after such an experience.
posted by wackybrit at 8:47 AM on December 6, 2009
Lots of cynicism here. I know we're all super-smart people on the Internet and marketing people are clearly drooling idiots, but I have a hunch that the ads are that way because they work.
It's just a product. If the ads were not working, they'd change them. Do that for a hundred years and you'll evolve a successful approach.
posted by rokusan at 8:58 AM on December 6, 2009 [2 favorites]
It's just a product. If the ads were not working, they'd change them. Do that for a hundred years and you'll evolve a successful approach.
posted by rokusan at 8:58 AM on December 6, 2009 [2 favorites]
It's not really possible to sell perfume in a straightforward "value proposition" way. What would they say? "One spritz and you'll get all the dick you want"
When you pay $80 for a half-ounce of liquid, it's clear that something deeper is going on. Perfume ads are selling you identity. The
And on a purely emotional sell like that, the advertisements are essentially dreamwork: Attempts to speak directly to your subconscious without your rational brain getting in the way.
posted by peabody at 9:02 AM on December 6, 2009
When you pay $80 for a half-ounce of liquid, it's clear that something deeper is going on. Perfume ads are selling you identity. The
- real
And on a purely emotional sell like that, the advertisements are essentially dreamwork: Attempts to speak directly to your subconscious without your rational brain getting in the way.
posted by peabody at 9:02 AM on December 6, 2009
Lots of cynicism here. I know we're all super-smart people on the Internet and marketing people are clearly drooling idiots, but I have a hunch that the ads are that way because they work.
It's just a product. If the ads were not working, they'd change them. Do that for a hundred years and you'll evolve a successful approach.
I came in here specifically to say this. I work in marketing as part of one of my jobs, and the way advertisements are constructed is purposeful. They're like that because they work. There's nothing complex about it.
posted by omnipotentq at 9:12 AM on December 6, 2009
It's just a product. If the ads were not working, they'd change them. Do that for a hundred years and you'll evolve a successful approach.
I came in here specifically to say this. I work in marketing as part of one of my jobs, and the way advertisements are constructed is purposeful. They're like that because they work. There's nothing complex about it.
posted by omnipotentq at 9:12 AM on December 6, 2009
Perfume is also something of a luxury good, so people aren't on the lookout for the highest performance or the best deal.
So true. Based on advertising, the "high performance fragrance" market has been cornered by Axe, anyway, the clear successor to the legendary Hai Karate.
posted by rokusan at 9:13 AM on December 6, 2009
So true. Based on advertising, the "high performance fragrance" market has been cornered by Axe, anyway, the clear successor to the legendary Hai Karate.
posted by rokusan at 9:13 AM on December 6, 2009
This way of marketing a fragrance (ad from 1967) would not work very well today. Maybe this ad (1970) was more selling? Or this one, also from the 70s? Compare with the current Chanel No. 5 ad. The ads are different, but the storyline is the same: men are attracted to women who wear Chanel No. 5. The marketing seems to work, Chanel No. 5 is still very popular and profitable. Another example of consistent marketing: Estee Lauder Beautiful. Wedding Day 1980s, Wedding Day 2009. Fragrances for men are often marketed the same way, straight forward or more indirectly: women are attracted to men who buy this product.
posted by iviken at 9:22 AM on December 6, 2009 [3 favorites]
posted by iviken at 9:22 AM on December 6, 2009 [3 favorites]
Perfume is also something of a luxury good
And that perception itself is largely a result of the advertising.
Fair enough, it's undeniably technically a "luxury" in a narrow microeconomic sense, since it is outside of our necessities of food, clothing, and shelter, but it's certainly far from being a "luxury" in the sense of something that's exclusive, upper-class or difficult to obtain.
For example, I wear some fragrance or other just about every single day, and a bottle that costs me less than $100 easily lasts a year or more - so that's around $2 a week, or something like 30c a day. In comparison, plenty of people spend 10-20 times that amount on their daily coffee.
But the perception that spraying on a cheap commodity item like fragrance somehow elevates me into the realms of luxury is probably a direct result of the imagery in the advertisements.
It's not unlike the way that marques like Ferrari or Lamborghini make far more money from selling merchandise like keyrings or caps than they ever do from selling cars - average Joes like me like to feel that they can buy into a luxury lifestyle, by grabbing at the small part that is actually easily accessible to them, so the advertising puts a lot of effort into pushing the line that fragrance is luxurious.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:41 PM on December 6, 2009
And that perception itself is largely a result of the advertising.
Fair enough, it's undeniably technically a "luxury" in a narrow microeconomic sense, since it is outside of our necessities of food, clothing, and shelter, but it's certainly far from being a "luxury" in the sense of something that's exclusive, upper-class or difficult to obtain.
For example, I wear some fragrance or other just about every single day, and a bottle that costs me less than $100 easily lasts a year or more - so that's around $2 a week, or something like 30c a day. In comparison, plenty of people spend 10-20 times that amount on their daily coffee.
But the perception that spraying on a cheap commodity item like fragrance somehow elevates me into the realms of luxury is probably a direct result of the imagery in the advertisements.
It's not unlike the way that marques like Ferrari or Lamborghini make far more money from selling merchandise like keyrings or caps than they ever do from selling cars - average Joes like me like to feel that they can buy into a luxury lifestyle, by grabbing at the small part that is actually easily accessible to them, so the advertising puts a lot of effort into pushing the line that fragrance is luxurious.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:41 PM on December 6, 2009
Perfume is a product you can't see
Reason for the arty bottles, which can be more valuable over time than the scent itself.
Almost nobody buys perfume without smelling it first
At this time of year, they sure as hell do. Men desperate to get the sweetie something and have nothing better to go by other than the emotive adverts will happily (okay, desperately) buy whatever rings a distant bell in their minds. ("That stuff that whats-her-name sells, you know, the Australian actress....") Hang around any department store in about two weeks time, say around five o'clock, and watch what happens. If they actually educated themselves on the subject of scent, they wouldn't buy half the crap that gets passed off as perfume. (Of course, the same could be said of women as well....)
By the way, the EU is banning a lot of the natural ingredients that used to go into real perfume in 2010 (there's a post on this that I might do if no one else steps up). Too late already for a lot of things, but if you know where to get a few of the older bottles of old style unreformulated scents from the past, now might be the time to stock up.
posted by IndigoJones at 4:33 PM on December 6, 2009
Reason for the arty bottles, which can be more valuable over time than the scent itself.
Almost nobody buys perfume without smelling it first
At this time of year, they sure as hell do. Men desperate to get the sweetie something and have nothing better to go by other than the emotive adverts will happily (okay, desperately) buy whatever rings a distant bell in their minds. ("That stuff that whats-her-name sells, you know, the Australian actress....") Hang around any department store in about two weeks time, say around five o'clock, and watch what happens. If they actually educated themselves on the subject of scent, they wouldn't buy half the crap that gets passed off as perfume. (Of course, the same could be said of women as well....)
By the way, the EU is banning a lot of the natural ingredients that used to go into real perfume in 2010 (there's a post on this that I might do if no one else steps up). Too late already for a lot of things, but if you know where to get a few of the older bottles of old style unreformulated scents from the past, now might be the time to stock up.
posted by IndigoJones at 4:33 PM on December 6, 2009
I work in UK advertising, though I've never done a perfume ad :)
Other posters are right - perfume, especially fashion-house or luxury brand perfume, is for many people a way of buying into a brand name at a price point that many people can afford.
I'm quite picky about my scents, and I'd struggle to name you a designer that I really like right now so I don't see myself as identifying with a particular brand. However, I'm not a 'luxury' person. Some people love Gucci or Chanel or Viktor and Rolf, and that's a huge draw - love Westwood's quirky fashion? It might be too expensive for you, or not fit you, but you can buy a bottle with her symbol on it called 'Libertine' and feel like the girl in fishnets on a horse.
Notice how the names entice people to perfume - I've made a special trip in my lunch-hour to go somewhere just because the fragrance was called 'Putain des Palaces'. And the bottles - there's a reason why people don't, as a rule, spend £50 a pop on a plain glass flacon with clear fluid inside (and if they do, you can bet it's a very *stylishly* plain flacon). And celebrity perfumes, which are massive in the UK at least - to me they all smell pretty much the same, often that inoffensive sweet or vanillin smell, but they sell because people want to be like Jordan or Paris or Britney. They're selling an image, not just the smell.
Having said that, I bought one of the perfumes I wear in the summer on the basis of it being mentioned in I Capture The Castle - perhaps I was seduced by the Englishness of smelling like a bluebell wood!
posted by mippy at 5:46 AM on December 7, 2009 [1 favorite]
Other posters are right - perfume, especially fashion-house or luxury brand perfume, is for many people a way of buying into a brand name at a price point that many people can afford.
I'm quite picky about my scents, and I'd struggle to name you a designer that I really like right now so I don't see myself as identifying with a particular brand. However, I'm not a 'luxury' person. Some people love Gucci or Chanel or Viktor and Rolf, and that's a huge draw - love Westwood's quirky fashion? It might be too expensive for you, or not fit you, but you can buy a bottle with her symbol on it called 'Libertine' and feel like the girl in fishnets on a horse.
Notice how the names entice people to perfume - I've made a special trip in my lunch-hour to go somewhere just because the fragrance was called 'Putain des Palaces'. And the bottles - there's a reason why people don't, as a rule, spend £50 a pop on a plain glass flacon with clear fluid inside (and if they do, you can bet it's a very *stylishly* plain flacon). And celebrity perfumes, which are massive in the UK at least - to me they all smell pretty much the same, often that inoffensive sweet or vanillin smell, but they sell because people want to be like Jordan or Paris or Britney. They're selling an image, not just the smell.
Having said that, I bought one of the perfumes I wear in the summer on the basis of it being mentioned in I Capture The Castle - perhaps I was seduced by the Englishness of smelling like a bluebell wood!
posted by mippy at 5:46 AM on December 7, 2009 [1 favorite]
Lots of cynicism here. I know we're all super-smart people on the Internet and marketing people are clearly drooling idiots, but I have a hunch that the ads are that way because they work.
yes and no. wait, let me back up here: I, too, work in advertising. I'm a creative and my job is to come up with campaigns. now let's talk for a moment about your "because they work" line. any ad can work if you (a) see it and (b) find the product or service interesting. even if the ad is atrocious you're still gonna check out that egg-beating phone if you find the idea of a phone that can beat your eggs interesting. that's how crap ads used to work all the way until ten years ago: they would just repeat them ten times and everyone would have seen them. it's more difficult to achieve that in your fragmented media society now, which is a key reason why tv ads are in trouble. but let's also talk about the "they have to work or they wouldn't be doing this" aspect. that is flat-out wrong. every agency worth its salt has a bunch of people employed just to make sure you understand the ads moved the needle no matter if it actually did. they will show you odd pr statistics about a percentage of people liking your brand better after having seen the ad, some media articles about your campaign, some other fuzzy stuff. some is quite good and you - the client who signed off on this stuff - will want to believe them because it was your decision to run this. you will then walk to your boss, get padded on the head for a job well done and do it all over again. what I'm saying is that there is a lot of self-deception going on here.
many business schools teach a very simple and rigid approach to how a marketing campaign works and most of these classes the mba's take are utter dreck. the folks who teach them believe in the procter and gamble approach of quantifiable benefits and preach mediocrity that does everything it can to avoid risk. yet it is being different that get attention. you switch the channel when something seems like an ad. that is why the cadbury gorilla works or the skittles beard stuff - it doesn't feel like all the other stuff you already know is just another ad. that's kind of why nike worked so great when dan wieden came out with the 'just do it' tagline. nobody had talked to us like that in ads until then.
I firmly believe that it is possible to do actually entertaining and insightful campaigns for any service or product. I actually believe it's easier to do for bland products without any distinguishing attributes. the ad I am most proud of in my book until this day is a student ad I did for a weight-loss company that didn't use a skinny chick in large pants. I do also believe that a perfume brand would be a rather easy client for someone to do something really attention-getting and fascinating and interesting and insightful and anything else you want it to be for. it's been done for id theft programs and cleaning solutions.
but I also know that you need people on both sides willing and able to do something other than the expected, done, repetitive and safe.
posted by krautland at 9:49 AM on December 7, 2009 [1 favorite]
yes and no. wait, let me back up here: I, too, work in advertising. I'm a creative and my job is to come up with campaigns. now let's talk for a moment about your "because they work" line. any ad can work if you (a) see it and (b) find the product or service interesting. even if the ad is atrocious you're still gonna check out that egg-beating phone if you find the idea of a phone that can beat your eggs interesting. that's how crap ads used to work all the way until ten years ago: they would just repeat them ten times and everyone would have seen them. it's more difficult to achieve that in your fragmented media society now, which is a key reason why tv ads are in trouble. but let's also talk about the "they have to work or they wouldn't be doing this" aspect. that is flat-out wrong. every agency worth its salt has a bunch of people employed just to make sure you understand the ads moved the needle no matter if it actually did. they will show you odd pr statistics about a percentage of people liking your brand better after having seen the ad, some media articles about your campaign, some other fuzzy stuff. some is quite good and you - the client who signed off on this stuff - will want to believe them because it was your decision to run this. you will then walk to your boss, get padded on the head for a job well done and do it all over again. what I'm saying is that there is a lot of self-deception going on here.
many business schools teach a very simple and rigid approach to how a marketing campaign works and most of these classes the mba's take are utter dreck. the folks who teach them believe in the procter and gamble approach of quantifiable benefits and preach mediocrity that does everything it can to avoid risk. yet it is being different that get attention. you switch the channel when something seems like an ad. that is why the cadbury gorilla works or the skittles beard stuff - it doesn't feel like all the other stuff you already know is just another ad. that's kind of why nike worked so great when dan wieden came out with the 'just do it' tagline. nobody had talked to us like that in ads until then.
I firmly believe that it is possible to do actually entertaining and insightful campaigns for any service or product. I actually believe it's easier to do for bland products without any distinguishing attributes. the ad I am most proud of in my book until this day is a student ad I did for a weight-loss company that didn't use a skinny chick in large pants. I do also believe that a perfume brand would be a rather easy client for someone to do something really attention-getting and fascinating and interesting and insightful and anything else you want it to be for. it's been done for id theft programs and cleaning solutions.
but I also know that you need people on both sides willing and able to do something other than the expected, done, repetitive and safe.
posted by krautland at 9:49 AM on December 7, 2009 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by multivalent at 5:53 AM on December 6, 2009 [1 favorite]