Symbols In Dreams

By “marketed”, she meant “developed with the help of panel testing and focus groups”; by “created” she meant “developed by experts”. In other words, young people are happy to buy as long as they don’t feel manipulated, patronised or tricked. Gabai-Pinsky’s aim was to come up with a product that would achieve commercial success by appearing to stand for more than commercial success – one that would make an enormous number of people all feel like individuals. The result was Loud, a perfume “built around a music proposition” (the bottle is shaped like a vinyl record) and “aimed at Gen-Y users”. The “face” of Loud was the model Daisy Lowe, who talked to journalists at the London launch not about her love of perfume – too brash – but her love of music: “I couldn’t go anywhere without my iPod.” Lowe (born 1989) was exactly the kind of spokesperson Gabai-Pinsky was looking for – a girl who can sell without “selling”.

The talking-heads-plus-archive-footage documentary Teenage Kicks: The Search for Sophistication (Monday) was devoted to commercial products that hadn’t necessarily been aimed at teenagers, but which nevertheless fascinate or appeal to them. It swiftly emerged that teenagers like things that make them appear more mature and confident than they feel. In between reminiscences from people who used to be teenagers (at wildly varied times), we were treated to adverts for Old Spice, Babycham, Strand cigarettes, Nescafé Gold Blend and Ferrero Rocher.