So here’s the copy:
“Fight For Me Extreme, it’s him. It’s all about him.
His strength, his charm, his sensuality.
With him, she would go anywhere. Right to the end, right to the limit and beyond, leading them ever further into their game of seduction, in a continuing crescendo.
The rules have not changed. As the fragrance, they are just intensified.
Like a motorcycle thrusting full throttle into the fresh air of the night, the first contact of fresh bergamot and green apple is intense, total. In a continuous build-up of speed, the heart note radiates strength and energy, geranium essence riding on the spicy warmth of cinnamon and cloves in an intoxicating sensation of power.
The point of no return. The dry-down unfolds in a warm base of sandalwood and vanilla boosted by a note of amber, leaving in its wake a refined, sensual, definitively masculine echo.”
- Pack Shot: Fight For Me Extreme
Oh… My… God… With copy which is straight off the page from an episode of ‘Mad Men’ Ducati appear to be launching their own men’s fragrances range – at precisely whom, we can only speculate. My own target group prediction is probably the 15 year old kid, or his parents, or girlfriend wanting to suppress the odours accompanying his hormonal shenanigans. At around that age, or perhaps a year later I remember being bought ‘Hai Karate’ – a kind of kung-fu themed aftershave, then of course back in the 70s there was also a flood of ‘Brut’ into the men’s fragrance pool, which up until that point had consisted purely of ‘Old Spice’. Barry Sheene and ‘Enery’ Cooper certainly splashed it all over the place and I get the feeling (because frankly I never really actually followed the market all that closely) that the men’s fragrance pool would never be quite so ripple-free again.
But shame on Ducati – really! Now it’s OK for Harley Davidson to license their brand onto everything from boob jobs to baby diapers, the H-D motorcycle is all about fantasy after all: the brand IS a fantasy, it’s a dream, a ‘lifestyle choice’. Living only in the minds of those who ride them – the ones who have bought the dream – and those who know nowt about bikes – the ones who have been sold the dream – the ‘legendary’, ‘iconic’ Harley Davidson forms a pulsating orangey-black froth through which the ‘motorcycle experience’ is perceived.
Having a bottle of H-D aftershave in the bathroom cabinet is a no-brainer accompaniment to having the H-D beer cooler, beer glass, slippers, dressing gown, wall clock, doormat, duvet cover, sunglasses, toothbrush, toothpaste, dog lead and collar set, rucksack, waste bin, beanie hat, coffee mug, pool table, tent, gas BBQ, bar stool, hall mirror, poker table and chair set, H-D Super Premium Gas Pump Display Case etc. etc. The bottle of aftershave in the bathroom cabinet is NOT an ironic wink at the lifestyle tat that is the H-D brand, the owner of the H-D aftershave lives it, he tips up the bottle and slaps it on his swarthy chops! Have you ever noticed how 95% of all H-D riders are portly mature blokes and are surprisingly well groomed beneath all those wrist thongs, flapping chaps and tassled H-D embossed ‘highway apparel’. They will all have a bottle of H-D aftershave and H-D deo-spray at home and which they darned well use. Only somewhere in the dark recesses of their psyches lurks the Marlon Brando (Triumph-mounted btw) Wild One, he pops out somewhere in front of the id when they swagger into a McDonalds after a tough haul round the Peak District on a Sunday afternoon – in a long convoy with all their other H-D ‘bros’ of course. Ever thought to yourself “Hmmm… those Harleys are burning Castrol R.” as they chug through your town, well of course they’re not, that’s the fusion of H-D aftershave, deodorant and burnt Texaco, the cavalcade’s olfactory signature.
Whoops, I appear to have digressed somewhat… back on track now… but Ducati, now that’s a proper potent, muscular motorcycle, a bike that you choose to ride because it does what a motorcycle should do and does well. It’s not a ‘lifestyle choice’ it’s not a ‘brand’, it’s a proper bike designed by smart Italian engineers and made in a modern factory, which also has product development led by MOTO GP racing and has classy European styling. Aftershave (an astringent scented lotion for applying to the skin after shaving) has no right to bear the Ducati name. It has nothing to do with motorcycles like Ducati. Once again, shame on you Ducati for going after a cheap buck. It cheapens your name.
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