Friday, December 16, 2011

Perfume Commercials

     While I was living in DC, I didn't have cable.  I watched most of my television on the internet.  And for the 6 years prior to that, I was a devotee of TiVo or other generic DVR.  Therefore, I haven't actually had to watch commercials in quite some time.  But now, I'm stuck watching them a lot, and among all of them, I find perfume and cologne commercials to be the most outlandish.
     What the hell is ever going on in these commercials?  The first few I saw I was truly confused.  There was water and weird music and hot people and chasing and then someone would whisper the name of the perfume. Fade out.  I spent a moment thinking "what does that have to do with perfume?" or just a plain "whhhaaaaa?"  It's only taken a few weeks of conditioning though; now I can spot them within a nanosecond of coming on. Weird music and a hot person?  This doesn't make sense?  Must be for perfume!
     I suppose I can understand why the folks who are marketing perfume have to go so abstract high concept with it--how can you showcase a smell on TV?  It's a visual medium.  Smell-o-vision failed.  But still, the commercials are ridiculous.  And they're always on.  And mostly, they make me feel weird about watching TV because frankly, they're just a bit like 30-second bits of porn.
      Seriously, what else could this be a commercial for?  Swimming?  Sex?  Penises?

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