A Piece of Fresh Air from the French Countryside: Air de Montquc

Scented marketing reaches new heights and the inventiveness of a young Frenchman crashes the meters of ingenuity. Are you having writer's block, a lack of creativity in your everyday life, an obstacle in the flow of the elixir vitae in your system? Don't worry, fresh air (but not just ANY fresh air, mind you) will take care of all those ailments. How would you like to literally buy the fresh air of the French countryside? Without putting a foot on French soil, that is? It's all possible, now. Someone has bottled the air of their small town and sells it by the quarter of a liter!

That someone is called Antoine and is a student of Communications who has lived in Montcuq for 7 years. He recounts his story on this link.
Montcuq is a small town in a region of France close to the Iberian peninsula, close to the Pyrenees. But the product doesn't make concessions: since it's air (well…) it has to be "consumed" all at once and you are not supposed to leave the box open, lest it evaporates too soon! The dedicated site is as bold as to claim "in order not to evacuate Montcuq of its fresh air, we limit our harvest at 10 litres of air per week". (Epic!)

The Facebook page has already amassed so many Likes that "the inventor" is promising a surprise when they reach 2000 Likes, proving that in the age of technology it suffices to ripple the pond for the ripples to reach unexpected lengths or that people have an astounding sense of humor (or desperation, take it how you will).

So for the advantageous price of 5€ you can now own 250ml of fresh Montcuq air! Or if you want the more "luxurious" Gold Edition (albeit only in packaging, as the air is…funnily enough…the same) for 12€! By the time I got to actually write this post the limited edition of 50 boxes of the Gold Edition are gone, which makes me laugh uncontrollably. Ain't life grand!

The "product" is shipped to the European Union, Switzerland, USA and Canada and anyone else can email to ask for specifics.

The box bears the distinctive disclaimer "Mise en boite a Montcuq" as if to guarantee its authenticity. Its' now literally possible to buy "hot air". To revert the famous line from Asterix "Ils sont fous ces Gaulois".

What's next? To get inspired by the pun-y name of the village itself, L'Air de Mon Cul, freshly gathered from my toilet. I bet there will be a few people actually buying it. Now, let me think of a business model…

My Wife Smells Since Changing Perfumes!

"My eye tastes bad art the way a restaurant critic tastes boiled duck confit in an orange chipotle sauce, with revulsion and pure anger. My nose is even more refined, as it can smell burgeoning mould on a Njursholm moose milk cheese from over 30 feet away. So, when the second Mrs. Mullpenny, Margarette, started using a perfume that I deemed to be like apricots farting, I swung into action immediately.
As it was soon to be Navidad, I spent a considerable amount of money and bought everyone on staff at Mullpenny Manor bottles of that wretched parfum. When they began wearing it around the house while doing their duties, Margarette immediately deemed her scent to be pedestrian and switched to a more overpowering bouquet, so as to drown out the smell of our help."

In a hilarious article in the format of a 'Dear Abby' column, Steve Murray on the National Post {click the link} replies to a husband's query on how to solve the problem of his wife's body odour suddenly surfacing through her change of perfumes (a matter of body chemistry if you please, from the male perspective).

Definitely worth a read..and many (unfeminist) belly laughs!!

Photo via askaden

Come Again?

According to Net coverage, singer Peter Andre was envisioning ...leading man George Clooney when he was giving the directions for his male celebrity fragrance Conditional (I'm almost this close to saying "Conditionner", although I realise it's a quip to his female one called Unconditional)
'If you can imagine George Clooney walking down the red carpet and how he would smell. That's how I try to imagine this smell,' femalefirst.co.uk quoted Andre as saying. Eh....riiiiiiiiight!
Now, what's the use of issuing an eponymous celebrity fragrance when you're setting the notes, so to speak, for consumers to fantasize about another celebrity in regards to it...that beats me!!

Perfume advertising 5: the hilarious side! (multimedia clips)

If serious advertising were not enough, sometimes marketing teams play up on our conceptions about perfume in parody-style, satirizing our wishes for perfume to make us powerful, mysterious, indomitable and just plain old attractive and irresistible to the object of our interest. If only things were that easy. And yet, how many times have the same questions have been asked: what to wear to get attention? What would make the opposite sex melt? What would make us look younger and thinner and 5 inches taller with a mane like a supermodel’s and legs that go for miles? Personally if a perfume were that powerful, I’d just as likely prefer it to vacuum my house and do a good hard rubbing at all those difficult corners, thank you very much. That would greatly put me in a sexy mood, all right.
But it’s fun to contemplate what people would put themselves in denial about and how advertising is playing with that, right?

The angle of sexual attractiveness regardless of exterior attributes (which is, let’s face it, a plain looking person’s wildest dream) is brilliantly exploited in the following AXE commercial. Just see what happens when one rides the elevator. Given AXE’s reputation for potency and its users’ abandon with the sprayer the commercial is down right dangerous, if only because it might encourage stinking up closed spaces with the evil fumes. But funny as hell, nevertheless Watch the clip clicking here

In general AXE has capitalized on witty commercials tongue-in-cheek-style to drive the point of “use more, get more” (yep, that kind of “get”, you've understood it right), aimed at an impressionable adolescent male audience. Even if they laugh, I suspect their Id is getting the message across that this magical juice will help them surpass Porfurio Rubirossa’s fame. Dream on, little ones. You might as well spritz some Egoiste (or if you’re hard for cash some Coty Wild Musk) and be done with it, so much simpler. There's also much to be said about the merits of soap, plain deodorant and oral hygiene. But you already knew that, I hope. After all, if you're a good guy someone somewhere will perceive it, right? No matter how divenly you smell if you're behaving like a jerk, no way will you be popular with the ladies. (say that out loud 5 times before you ask again what cologne is a women's magnet)
And it’s great to see that LYNX, the British equivalent of AXE, has aired a commercial that takes this to the next level with a touch of the absurd and the borderline macabre. The heavy british accent of the voice-over is completely engaging as well. Not to be missed! Watch the clip clicking here

But of course teenage boys aside, the greatest target of perfume as a sexual attractant, a magic amulet of irresistibility are women. Women from all walks of life, all physiques, all cultural levels. Perfume always sold fantasy and women are always a little more susceptible to daydreaming it seems. Whether that’s ingrained or a result of upbringing is debatable (and getting girls girly things certainly makes them impose on them powers beyong their capability). Hey, it doesn’t even have to be in the sexual arena (we have come a long way baby!), but it’s so much more thrilling if it works there as well. In my humble opinion, perfume as a manipulating social weapon is like copulating as a dieting means greatly overrated. It's no accident that human beings have gone from the olfactory to the visual emphasis, after all we don't walk with our noses down the ground and into other creatures' butts all day like dogs, now do we?
We won’t go into the subject of perfumes containing the infamous pheromones, because I have zero experience with them and studies show that the results vary greatly (and can be attributed to self-induced feelings of confidence), however it’s not unheard of people using them to accomplish just that. Which begs the question what would happen if the result wears off or if they run out. But I think they consider it a fait accomplit if the victim has been safely anesthesized by then...They will have found a way to keep it by then or have gotten the chance to show their great personality. This is just theoritising on my part, mind you; not that I reject the right of anyone to use whatever he/she considers best.

In the great spoof I discovered, aired on Mad TV, Antonia Perfume, an otherwise sane woman (and not really unattractive, if you deduct the purposesly silly styling and lisp) has gone bananas over the desire for her perfume to attract and entice men. And it makes the great point that in order for someone to actually be attracted they have to be really close to smell the fumes, wouldn’t they? Which they wouldn’t if there is no other reason for them to get close in the first place. Imagine a woman trying to bumb into the object of her affection in a crowded bar. Many hilarious misunderstandings later and alcoholic shots as well, it might garner some attention. Watch the clip clicking here Unless one is olfactory stalking strangers purposesly offering them their wrists for sniffing ("smell me!"), which would make for another great spoof I guess.

Hope you have enjoyed the perfume advertising section critique and the multimedia clips courtesy of Youtube.com.

You can watch many many more in the appendix I have compiled on my info site Perfume Shrine, direct link clicking here

Enjoy!

Pics come from ads in okadi.com