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Monday 13 October 2008

Shared Opinion

We should resist the globalisation of smells. From London to Delhi, stench is truth

Every Sunday night for the past couple of months, I have been going back in time. I have been in the early 1960s. Sharp suits, womanly curves, and hair that went one way or went the other, and damn well left a line if it changed its mind. I’ve been watching the drama Mad Men on BBC4, and I’ve been gripped.

Not so much by the plot. More by the general ambience. Don Draper and his crew are advertising men on Madison Avenue, and they ooze a certain style. They make you want to mix drinks at lunchtime and grab the secretary’s arse. Stick a hanky in your top pocket, folded razor straight, and tie your tie backwards with the thin end down. They all look so gleamingly good that you can almost smell the Brylcreem.

Except, of course, you couldn’t. Not if you were actually there. All you would smell is stale smoke. They all smoke, all the time. While they eat, while they sleep, while they argue, while they kiss. That office of theirs must have been like last night’s house party, all the time. One of them even smokes a pipe, for God’s sake. And the women, too. Sidle up to Draper’s servile, baby-blonde wife, and behind all that fluttering chiffon you’d probably find she stinks like the mumbling old tramp at your bus stop. You don’t see smells on television. You forget how they work.

Hence those Lynx advertisements. If you didn’t know, would you ever figure out what they were for? The women don’t even twitch their noses. They just follow the guy, hypnotised, as though the musk in the cans was that Attract Women™ pheromone stuff that they used to sell out the back of Viz and Private Eye. Remember them? ‘In seven out of ten tests, the woman headed straight for the chair!’ So confusing, for the teenage boy. Muddled, lusty thoughts of furniture.

I read that they are doing well in India, those Lynx advertisements. The humour translates, the Benny Hill fantasy is one of which the Indian man approves. According to reports earlier this week, Asia is the next frontier in the deodorant wars. Lynx, which they call Axe, is the subject of a major Unilever marketing push. Currently, only 7 per cent of Asia uses anything, and even fewer in India. It’s a big market.

More articles from: Hugo Rifkind | this section

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