Male perfumes all smell of industrial alcohol mixed with old leather, for some reason. I'm not really tempted.

The Christmas season is approaching (some would say that it's been here for the past few weeks), and it's amazing how much changes to reflect that. Obviously shops start putting up expensive yet oddly tasteless displays, and the radio starts playing "All I Want For Christmas Is You" on endless repeat, but there are some other, more subtle effects.

(Incidentally, it was around this time of year in 2005 that Madonna began following me around. Seriously, "Hung Up" was playing in every single shop I went into when on a Christmas shopping expedition. It made a bad experience considerably worse.)

One of these effects can be seen in TV adverts. For most of the year, there's a decent spread of different types of adverts. There's plenty of cars, food, clothes and so on being constantly offered for our consideration, and even if they're not very good adverts they're usually at least comprehensible.

At Christmas, however, things suddenly change, as the perfume market goes into overdrive. Apparently, it's around now that the perfume companies start to realise that they don't stand a chance of recouping all their losses over the year (don't believe me? When was the last time you bought perfume because you wanted to buy it, rather than as a gift for someone else?) and immediately hire an ad agency to remind everyone that now would be the perfect time to send a loved one the subtle message that they don't smell so good. Result: endless perfume ads, filling every advert break until the audience screams "ENOUGH with the perfume! Try to sell me a car or something!"

Perfume ads wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that it's rather difficult to describe a smell through a purely audiovisual medium. This leads to some, shall we say, inventive messages being sent to the viewer. Unfortunately, they do leave themselves open to misinterpretation. For example...

Hugo Boss: XX and XY

Intended message: Our perfumes for men and women are very different. Sexily different.
Actual message: Wearing our perfume will cause you to have a slightly surreal boxing match with your partner.

Chanel No. 5

Intended message: Our perfume suggests wealth, fame...and love.
Actual message: Go and watch this non-existent film which is suspiciously similar to Moulin Rouge!

Sarah Jessica Parker's Lovely

Intended message: A gentle and beautiful perfume by a gentle and beautiful woman.
Actual message: Check it out, this woman is rich, good looking and wearing beautiful clothes. You aren't. Sucks to be you, eh?

David Beckham's Instinct

Intended message: This perfume, like its creator, is strong, impulsive and natural.
Actual message: You knew that this man was reasonably talented and mind-bogglingly rich. But did you know that he was reasonably talented, mind-bogglingly rich and extremely pretentious?

Armani Code for women

Intended message: Men will be helplessly transfixed by your beauty if you wear this perfume.
Actual message: Do you ever feel like men only want you for your warmth, charm, intelligence and personality, rather than your body and your apparent extreme wealth? We can fix that easily!

Is there such a thing as an acceptable perfume ad? I reckon there is. We start by showing a reasonably attractive-looking person spraying a little onto their wrist, then sniffing gently. Then they look up, and say "Yeah, that smells nice. Kind of flowery."

I'd buy it.

None of the videos included here belong to me, so they're not included under my CC licence. I can't see the companies involved complaining about their adverts being seen by more people, though.