marketing and branding

pictures and perfume

I do not remember where it was, but the last few days I came several times upon ads for perfume, smaller and larger brands, with old things arranged in a rather sanitary way. Strange. Have you ever wondered why so often, perfumes are presented in a pile of antiques? Nicely arranged, the flacon sits amidst old leather things, old tin things, old books. But it is all fake.

Other presentations of flacons: Close to naked bodies usually with little water pearls (think sweat) on metallic skin, which either is intended to bring about associations of hot bodies doing adult things or it reminds us in the fact that our bodies smell and that perfume fights odors.  You find these pictures usually in oversexed blogs of younger guys and girls or in highly glossy magazines serving folks of my age (45+), or on street ads or in newspapers. An alternative to sweaty bodies: The flacon comes with close ups of parts of the body such as lips or fingers with red nails.

Other presentations of flacons: Nature. Innocent, flowers, elf, my little pony, golden leaves, you name it. Quite often, these pictures go with fruity florals made for the masses and ending massively often in toilets as overly sweet room spray.

Or you have the evocative pictures: cowboys et al. Yes, that ‘s the category where you’d find tauer a while ago. But not anymore. Zero pictures. Nada. Niente.

I miss the option to play with pictures. Here is my dream: one day I will have this photo shooting in the tropics, with the 25 year old wet Mr. muscle guy, getting out of a golden ocean after playing with dolphins and mermaids, with the sweet elf flying in over a sea of orange light, holding tight to his antique rings and leather things.

Until we get there:, here is a little relapse into old picture worlds in the tauer universe: Three arrangements of the “old” tauer flacon, used to hold the Cologne du Maghreb, that I will give away during the advent calendar. What is your favorite?




The picture on the left: An illustration by Gustave Doré from our Doré bible.