Contrarian Influencer
Let’s workshop this piece about how sophisticated consumers might be just as manipulable as mainstream audiences, perhaps even more so because of their belief in their own discernment.
scent of the day: Opus XII, by Amouage.—A well-done take on the overdone rose-incense category, Opus XII—inspired by the rosebud mystery of Citizen Kane—walks that fine line (which we see among Amouage’s own Chong-era rose-centered offerings) between challenging (Opus X, Imitation Man) and wearable (Lyric Woman, Lyric Man): the olibanum, although heavily dosed, is piney and citrusy and bright like in Terenzi’s Lillipur (as opposed to dark and brooding and smoky like in Interlude Man) and the rose, although as artistic and loud here as in Opus X, is covered with droplets of black ink (as opposed to a thick wood varnish like in Opus X)—the end result being a fragrance that comes off upbeat and happy (especially due to the lemony elemi, the tea-tree camphor of the incense, the Epic Woman reminiscent rose-water tea impression, and the sweet vanilla and myrrh) but with a subtle suggestion of darkness (especially from the black ink, the musky suede, and the earthy patchouli).
Contrarian Influencer
Imagine a perfume house ravenous to maximize its reach. Superficial populations—they are already in the bag, their critical faculties chloroformed by well more than just glowing reviews from YouTube influencers bought with free bottles. But what about those potential buyers who want art-driven as opposed to profit-driven fragrances. What about those self-mythologizing aesthetes—too discerning and deep to be counted among the sheeple—who fancy themselves connoisseurs immune to marketing ploys? How might the house sway these above-it-all loathers of the aquatic freshie (Acqua di Bah) and the reptile-brain commercialism for which it stands in every Ulta and Sephora?
One insidious strategy, already in play for all we know, banks hard into dystopia. The house could plant a contrarian influencer. Lauding bygone perfumes—“the vintages, not their bullshit reformulations”—along the way (those perfumes whose buying, if possible at all anymore, will not be of any benefit to the house’s competitors), and lauding here and there some of the artisanal houses (if only to establish credibility and a reference point of quality work), his main job will be to trash the current offerings of the house (and its competitors too)—for being “soulless cash grabs.” He will sneer at the house, as he will at the competitors, for being “yet another purveyor of corporate sewage.” Speaking right to the heart of the “elitist” types (those who view perfumery through the lens of aesthetic enjoyment rather than through the lens of the panty-dropping pragmatics), this viral vector of a YouTube reviewer will condemn the provoke-no-challenge approach of every mass-market designer: too concerned with the bottom line ever to risk the burning-tire accords of Andy Tauer or the barnyard oud of Bortnikoff or the pissy animalics of real-civet vintages like YSL’s Kouros before the days of IFRA overreach. The cost of such eviscerations, no matter how ruthless, is negligible. Those with artisanal-niche sensibilities, after all, were not going to buy the current line anyway.
However counterintuitive the strategy might seem to myopic eyes (reminiscent of computer chess engines like Deep Blue or AlphaZero sacrificing even queens and bishops for downstream positional advantage), the payoff comes into relief—like twilight stars—with a patient look into the distance. After rounds of passionate mockery, the YouTuber—either hired to play the long game of building credibility among the uppity crowd or perhaps manipulated in such a way not to realize he operates exactly how the company wants him to do—suddenly pivots. The house’s newest releases, so the trojan horse will say, break the mold of commercial vapidity. “I’d almost swear they used real oakmoss—even real deer musk,” he might marvel. Although this might be pushing it (especially if the house did not make sure to have included certain niche elements at least at recessive enough levels so as not to offend mediocre sensibilities), he might even go so far as to say—in what would be a brilliant stroke—“Maybe I was too harsh on the earlier work. I mean, this pure art in a bottle. It can’t just becoming from nowhere.”
His on-screen change of tune, his bowled-over expressions at the house’s prodigal-son turn, will move the resistant population—trust earned through years of shared disdain—to start buying. That is the idea. Even just a sliver of their wallets would be a victory.
