Bloggers as Calvin Klein models

Above, Ben and Mena Trott, founders of Six Apart and makers of the Movable Type blog software, imagined as Calvin Klein models. The designer label has launched a new scent, in2u, aimed at bloggers and other "technosexuals". Richard Blakeley has whipped up an ad campaign. The text is borrowed from Calvin Klein's own marketing materials. We didn't make it up. We couldn't make this up.

8:41 AM on Thu Mar 8 2007
By Nick Denton
10,602 views
8 comments

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edlee at 09:32 AM on 03/08/07
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That caption looks as if a few letters are missing - unless CK is going down the well worn "FCUK" double entendre road...
Silvanus at 10:57 AM on 03/08/07
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Desperate. They really think bloggers will run out buy cologne now? I love modernism!
deliriousnyc at 02:46 PM on 03/08/07
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Who cares what bloggers smell like?
Donk In A Box at 03:43 PM on 03/08/07
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I'm not saying your average blogger couldn't do with a drop of scent, but this has got to be the dumbest idea since Amish computer camp.
tombomb.com at 10:33 AM on 03/09/07
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Calvin Klein: Smells Too Much Like Teen Spirit?
First, we get mysterious sewer odors wafting through NYC, now this olfactory challenge emerges: CKin2u.

The eager folks at the faded brand, Calvin Klein, are hoping to sniff out a new generation of loyalists with a re-introduction of the CKOne perfume that hit it big way back in the 1990s.

From the New York Times:

"Next month, Calvin Klein Inc. and Coty, its fragrance licensee, will introduce a sequel to CK One for a new generation, the so-called millennials, and in doing so, they will attempt to capture lightning in a bottle for a second time. Calvin Klein, now without its namesake designer, hopes to rejuvenate a fragrance embodying the essence of hip 20-somethings - even at the risk that such a notion is as outdated as a Prince song about partying like it's 1999."

The CK gambit is nothing short of shameless. The too-cutely-named product (as if texting shorthand makes it hip) will be packaged in a phallic-shaped rocket bottle cast of iPod-like plastic and will be hawked by BubbleGen actor Kevin Zegers (who played the son of a pre-operative transsexual in "Transamerica") and model, Freja Beha Erichsen. The company describes the target demo as "physically bold but emotionally guarded." Use of computers, evidently, makes them thus.

We can poke fun of the late-to-the-party pandering, but the real fatal flaw: lack of authenticity. No one of this generation wants to smell like BS.

CKin2u is another sign that brands and retailers are simply bolloxed up when it comes to figuring out the mindset of the Bubble Generation consumer. Can it be saved? Maybe. But the old suits in the stark white offices won't have a clue what to do. Key is, do they at least know that much.

Message to the Calvin Klein management: I invite you to come to Silicon Valley and get a primer on the new consumer before you launch a dud.
noneother at 02:42 PM on 03/09/07
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technosexuals. fuck that.
ming666 at 03:41 PM on 03/09/07
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sort of like your grandad saying that this aftershave is real hep.
ming666 at 03:55 PM on 03/09/07
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lets not forget the old queen sold out to the philips-van heusen companies . promoters of brands like izod and the eternal donald j. trump. i have to say these two squids are perfect for the postmodern 21st century zeitgeist. all squishy and no angles - even in the resume. in web 1.0 the cv would have specified racing ducatis in the moto gp on the isle of manx. for these fungi its gathering around the campfire to debug perl scripts.

c'mon i read darwin. the species is doomed.