John Ray left a comment on Mark’s “A disappointed liberal” post which, as John’s comments often do, piqued my fancy.  He wrote:-

The pervasive power of advertising is a favourite Leftist theme but it is a crock.  Ask anybody in the ad game and they will tell you that they only wish they had such power.  Brand-shifting is all they usually can do - NOT “create demand”.  Read up about the Edsel if you doubt it.

Now, John is a man who has studied the human mind.  I am merely mindful of my lack of study.  So in response to his, of course, properly researched and, if required, extensively referenced point of view I will offer that scientifically useless device: personal experience.

Long, long ago when I was still convinced that twin Webbers and racing tyres held out the prospect of a more invigorating pursuit than respectability I took a job in the marketing department of a consumer products company.  Once a week, after it had been thumbed by everybody else, a copy of Michael Heseltine’s “Campaign” – the bible of the London advertising industry - landed on my desk.  It was the source for agency news and jobs for the ad industry.  The fact was that anyone who wanted to break in to advertising (which I did) had to know the right people.  Or, if they were bereft of contacts and would take any goddamned, dead-end job they could, they had to read Campaign.  I had to read Campaign.

One fine day in, I would guess, 1970 or 71, this august publication splashed across its centre-spread the news of an international conference of the fragrances industry at which a far-reaching decision had been taken.  Fragrances were going to take off.

Up to this point the problem for the industry had been that fragrances, like toilet paper and toothpaste, was a mature market.  Unless someone could conjure up more women quickly –  something with which I personally would have wholly found favour – the tiresome and unappealing future for the big international players was one of stealing market share off one another.

The really frustrating thing was that half of humanity wouldn’t touch their products with a barge pole.  All market research had shown that males were super-resistant to wearing perfume.  Years of failed white boxers splashing it all over the studio floor, sun-shot forests of pine trees and rolling Pacific surf had produced only a niche market (consisting mostly of office furniture salesmen).

But Les Nez Eminence had been watching global trends.  They had noticed the ubiquitous shoulder-length locks and Zapata moustaches worn by their middle managers.  They had seen the flared trousers, the striped “executive” shirts with white collars and those appallingly tasteless flowery kipper ties on the rare occasions when the directors’ lift had broken down.  Clearly, something was happening.  Twenty-five years without a war in Europe was taking its toll of Western man.  Les Nez began to twitch.  Was there the whiff of new profits on the wind … indeed, not just profits but a veritable doubling of market size?  Could the day of male fragrances finally be upon us?

Without much further ado the word went down from the top floor.  It fell to the industry’s marketing directors to make the miracle happen.  And thence it fell to Madison Avenue, the ideas factory.  The JWT’s, DDB’s and CDP’s were to propose methods of changing male attitudes throughout the western world.  A revolution had been ordered.  Just like that.

My copy of Campaign, which I have remembered all these years, announced The Winning Strategy.  It was, it must be said, well thought out.  You can’t sell fragrances to men.  Impossible.  Don’t waste your time.  But women?  Women need to know how to deal with all life’s little problems, and they are gloriously, gloriously suggestible.  It’s only nature, of course.  All admen understand that, or they couldn’t spend so many afternoons in hotel rooms.  No, women could be convinced that they would like their boyfriends to smell nice and, well, less … less … you can’t say it but you know what I mean.

Sexual blackmail.

So it was that a flood of new “male” fragrances, hitherto in history completely unrequired for the survival of the species, sprang into being.  It was the most extraordinary success and testament to the power of the image.  The ad agencies prospered.  The fragrances manufacturers prospered.  Les Nez prospered.  It was capitalism at its most selfish, deceitful and manipulative.  But, hey, who remembers that now but me?

The wave of pongy invention finally halted at the failure of genital sprays!  No matter how hard the admen tried they couldn’t get real men to spray between the legs.  Women, though, being more suggestible …

Today, an entirely new insecurity had been rooted in the youthful and not so youthful male mind.  It is no longer questioned whether fragrances for men are necessary or useful.  The idiots buy the crap anyway.

But, as readers of Nature will know, they are ill-advised.  Perfume is a dumb move for males.  Science has demonstrated conclusively that females respond sexually (by relaxing) to the natural male aroma.  It’s wonderfully, inevitably genetic.  Girls really do like a real man.  From a Darwinian perspective the male underarm can only fulfill its evolutionary role if unpolluted by plant extract.

So, guys, get more girls.  Defeat global capitalism.  Fight for your personal autonomy and your selfish gene.  Clear out the bathroom cabinet.