After writing a piece about Natalie Portman’s Miss Dior
perfume ad recently, I thought about how it would be wonderful to rework an ad
like this into use as a public service announcement encouraging kids to work
hard in school and develop their brains so they can be successful in life. The
idea is very simple: Marissa Mayer, one of the more public faces of Google, and
an extremely attractive woman herself, could make an ad that’s like Natalie
Portman’s Miss Dior ad (that is, sexy and seductive, but in a way that is very
tasteful and not at all explicit or anything), and have it be for a fictitious
perfume called: “Intelligence”. So she would be dancing a slow dance with some
male model, and we would hear some female voice whispering seductively:
“Intelligence!” Then she would pull out her smartphone, but the guy would put
his hand over it and kiss her, and the woman’s voice again would seductively
whisper: “Intelligence!” And then he would give her a gift, which would turn
out to be a Rubik’s Cube that’s all jumbled up, and the camera would pan to the
guy’s face as he laughed, but then the camera would pan back down to her hands,
and it would be all solved, and the woman’s voice would once again seductively
whisper: “Intelligence!” Then a couple of other little vignettes would play
out, and then they would show a beautiful crystal perfume bottle with the word
“Intelligence” written on it in calligraphy, and with a pen & ink outline
drawing of a brain on it, and say: “Intelligence: the fragrance! It’s
intoxicating!”
But then the male model guy from the ad would push this
screen aside, as if it was some backing on wheels, and he would say: “No,
ladies: it’s not perfume that does it! She worked hard in school, did very
well, and got a great job at Google! She’s pretty, yes; but that’s not what
makes her uniquely and amazingly attractive: it’s her mind and her work ethic
that do that. And you can do it too! Just work hard in school, believe in yourself, and
chase your dreams: there’s nothing
that’s more attractive than that!”
And that would be an ad encouraging girls to work hard in school and reach
their academic and actual real world potentials. Because while our culture
celebrates external beauty and celebrity and fame, it’s really intelligence
that makes the world go ‘round. And physical beauty only counts for so much
when you have to spend a lot of time with someone. It’s really someone’s
personality and intelligence that shine through as most attractive of all, in
my opinion. And that’s what I really think we should be teaching our kids to
value most. And I think making an ad that looks like a perfume ad but plays a
switcheroo on the audience would be very memorable and fun (and hopefully
convincing). And that’s the most an ad can hope to be, after all.
(The one defect in this scenario is naturally the fact that
I believe girls work harder and do better in school than boys already anyway,
so they don’t really need this message as much. But maybe this could help
motivate some guys to work harder in school too. But then again, I guess that
ad would be a little different, huh? But then, that’s much easier! Simply
show a super-beautiful woman with some out-of-shape nerd with bottle-bottom
glasses, and have it be an ad for a cologne called: “Valedictorian”. Then the
announcer says: “Make the choice that makes you ‘most likely to succeed’:
because there’s nothing hotter than the promise of a bright future, and then
attaining it!” They just have to make it clear that it’s not really a cologne,
but a fact that the successful guy gets the beautiful woman, and there’s just
nothing that provides success like top academic performance. The jocks might
get the hot girls in high school, but hot girls grow up, and then they want
security, and a successful man. And there’s just no beating smarts for
success. So hit those books, boys!)
