Resist the Onslaught

Twentysomethings, this is your moment. According to an article in yesterday's New York Times, you are about to be hit, and hit hard, with a campaign aimed right between your eyes - and up your nostrils. Calvin Klein is coming for you. He knows who you are. He knows where you live. And he's betting big bucks that you want to wear CKin2U. He's so sure of himself, he even named the new fragrance as if he were texting you a message on your cell.

Tom Murray, President of Calvin Klein, is about to get all viral on you, 'cause that's the buzz on the street. (At least that's the buzz he picked up from people who know other people who have eyes and ears on this buzzy street.) He's got a site called whatareyouin2 (that I won't link for him) that invites film students to submit shorts answering the question, "What are you into?" Supposedly patterned after MySpace, I am counting on all film students to make this "online community" a giant flop. Cue the crickets.

About the new fragrance, Murray says, "We have envisioned this as the first fragrance for the technosexual generation." That's right. He called you a technosexual. The press kit for CKin2U has technosexual lines like this: She likes how he blogs, her texts turn him on. It’s intense. For right now.

Like all fragrances, the bottles of his and her CKin2U will hold the promise of hot, sweaty love. I know you're smarter than this. (You know that the only sex that comes in a bottle is tequila.) I know you won't sign up on the Calvin Klein site and submit your short film. I know you don't want to be part of an online community that has as its centerpiece a bottle of perfume. I know you don't want to be called a technosexual. That sounds like a serial masturbator staring at online porn all day, or someone having sex with robots.

Advertisers: If you're going to do the social media thing, you can't be this stupid. Wake up and smell the sweat-soaked blog entries of your target market.