These 19 fake perfume ads are every bit as beautifully pretentious as real ones
At some point in advertising history, a group of creative types must have sat down and thrashed out the rules for making perfume commercials. They obviously decided that these ads should have the production values of a Hollywood blockbuster, minimal dialogue, a ruinously expensive star and, most importantly, they should be incredibly surreal.
The genius behind the @PerfumeAds Twitter account has absolutely nailed the concept. These are our 19 favourites.
1.
Blue screen
Whispered:
“Have you ever loved so hard you split your soul in two”
A dam bursts in slow motion
A couple kiss in the rain
A clock spins in reverse
A ham explodes
A page is torn out of a dictionary
David Beckham leans into a microphone in a courtroom:
“Guilty”
— PerfumeAdsForSale (@PerfumeAds) February 22, 2018
2.
A woman sits alone at a typewriter in grand mansion.
It’s Natalie Portman, wearing two berets.
She stares at the blank page and takes a sip of ink.
She cocks her head to one side, smiling. Black lips.
“Where do I begin?”
She types 6 letters with her nose.
T H E E N D
— PerfumeAdsForSale (@PerfumeAds) June 21, 2018
3.
A rebel motorcycle gang pulls up in the desert.
The leader removes his helmet. He’s Gigi Hadid.
Gigi strikes a match.
“I don’t know where I’m going”
Blows it out. Atmospheric smoke.
“Do you?”
Earth is now flat and Gigi drives over the edge.
A bison nods out of respect.
— PerfumeAdsForSale (@PerfumeAds) June 1, 2018
4.
Blackness
“Have you ever shaken hands with your own heart?”
Fade in-
Close up of a bison’s eye
A woman throws a bucket of paint at a wall
A grandfather clock falls from a cliff
Time-lapse sunset
A saxophone is thrown in the bin
Jude Law cradles a wolf cub:
“I have”
— PerfumeAdsForSale (@PerfumeAds) April 27, 2018
5.
Taylor Swift is inside a glass box in a maximum security prison.
Music is outlawed and she’s on Death Row.
For her last meal, she’s ordered an ice cream.
It melts. It's a microphone.
She sings, shattering the glass cell.
And the glass ceiling.
She is not injured.
— PerfumeAdsForSale (@PerfumeAds) March 27, 2018
6.
Brad Pitt shadow boxes in his warehouse apartment
Ducks a swinging lightbulb
“HAH”
His piano plays itself
“HUH”
Brad kicks a pillar
“HOO”
Looks angrily into the back of a spoon
“There is no greater opponent than yourself”
He has aged 40 years
“Victory”
He’s crying
— PerfumeAdsForSale (@PerfumeAds) March 15, 2018
7.
Glamorous black tie affair.
Causing a stir among the antiquated elite is Romeo Beckham.
He's in a tuxedo but his tie is rebelliously loose.
He strides towards us.
Picks up the wrong fork.
"You can't tell me what to do"
He inserts it in a plug socket.
Black screen.
— PerfumeAdsForSale (@PerfumeAds) March 2, 2018
8.
Justin Bieber is hungry
Hungry for passion
He sniffs the wind
“Sometimes I wonder – When Are We?”
Flashback: Bieber as child
Bieber as sperm
Beginning of time
A lone piano floats in space
A bee on fire
Back to adult Bieber. Karate stance, to camera:
‘History Is History’
— PerfumeAdsForSale (@PerfumeAds) February 24, 2018
9.
Andrew Garfield cries at a sunset:
“Nature, it’s natural”
Tight on his wet eyes
“Beauty, it’s beautiful”
He takes a photo of the horizon with an old Polaroid camera
“And it can never truly be captured”
He shows us the photo. It’s the image of a dead owl.
‘Touch Your Now’
— PerfumeAdsForSale (@PerfumeAds) April 22, 2018
