Are you ever watching a commercial that seems like its sole purpose is to weird you out or trip your brain, until at the last second a whispery voice comes on the screen announcing an iconic fragrance?
Whether it’s Sophia Coppola’s vision of “Miss Dior” commercial or Romain Gavras’ recognizable “J’Adore Absolu”, perfume ads are not just for advertising, they’re for entertaining and artistic expression.
Playing with the Senses
Perfumes and fragrances are a hard commodity to market; there’s no way to show consumers how good the product smells or how much they’ll enjoy it through a screen. However, by producing an emotionally evocative advertisement can transcend its status as a commercial.
While people often criticize luxury perfume commercials for being over the top and out of touch, that’s what they’re meant to be. Oftentimes big-name celebrities are featured in short films selling perfumes like Scarlett Johansson for Dolce & Gabanna.
A Propositon-less Product
In marketing, a proposition is an easy-to-understand reason why a customer should buy a product or service. In other words, the obvious selling point of a product.
This doesn’t exist for perfume. There’s no way to make a scent stand out through a screen, and since quality of smell is subjective, advertisers can’t specify that one scent is inherently better or more effective than another.
To successfully market a perfume, sellers have to leverage feelings in order to sell the brand. As a result, commercials become products of the formula “you should buy X because it will make you feel Y”. Because of this, creatives, directors, and film producers like to take as much creative liberty as possible.
Even though most people think a scent “smells nice” not “smells like I’m driving a Maserati up the coast of California while it’s raining red rose petals with a supermodel in my passenger seat,” the feelings of confidence, sexiness and luxury are supposed to translate.
So Drama!
Martin Scorsese’s film for Bleu de Chanel starring Timothee Chalamet features dramatic flashes of blue and glaringly intense eye contact. Scorsese’s impetus for the film was to portray the dualities of fame in today’s day and age, expanding on the campaigns line “to create a contemporary picture of free, daring, and determined self-discovery.”
Drama and luxury tend to go hand in hand. Another reason that fragrance commercials tend to get so out of hand is because artistic directors only have a minute or two to create highly emotional images. Unlike a film, or a short film for that matter, commercials have to capitalize on every second they have the viewers attention —there’s no time for subtleties.
If you watch or have watched any wacky perfume commercials, tell VALLEY your thoughts @VALLEYmag on Instagram and X.
