Epic failures of mythological branding

plus a few spring recs

Hi friends,

Today’s missive is an Ovidian sidecar of inanity: a list I started keeping last year of mythological brands anchored to positively ludicrous allusive choices. Sharing my top (bottom?) three, plus two dishonorable mentions, in the quite-useless spirit of passing on a chuckle.

1. Icarus Jet

Straight out of my novel-in-progress and the catalyst behind this little catalogue of shame, Icarus Jet was, unbelievably, a discovery of research not invention:

Icarus Jet is a private jet charter firm based in Dallas, TX, London, U.K, Dubai, UAE, and Nairobi, Kenya with the capabilities to handle all of your luxury private jet charter needs. We have the highest safety rating when it comes to private aircraft charter and private jet management. Our tagline “We will take you everywhere” is not just a reference to travel, it’s our way of thinking.

Yes, an aviation company decided to name itself after Icarus—because nothing says luxury private travel like a boy fleeing captivity on homemade wings held together by wax. I involuntarily picture an exclusive labyrinthine lounge, a doubly grotesque Minotaur in tails holding a tray of drinks. Opulence!

Then there is the tagline. “We will take you everywhere” . . . as in too close to the sun so the wax melts and I fall to my watery death? The logo initially suggests familiarity with the mythic backdrop—in which case, what was literally anyone involved with this thinking—but I’m wondering if its bizarre decapitation offers a clue. Did someone disastrously confuse Icarus with Winged Victory, specifically the Louvre’s headless Nike of Samothrace? This would explain a great deal, and makes me think business schools need to start teaching “Ovid for Senior Executives” (read: Edith Hamilton).

Incidentally, Nike the shoe/sportswear company boasts one of the best mythological brands of all time.

Victoire de Samothrace, 2nd century BCE

2. Trojan Condoms

I’d surmise the origin story here involves the walls of Troy being “impregnable”—but surely someone capable of this reference would have also known the Greeks . . . got in anyway? In, like, an extremely pregnant way? It’s not as absurd as “Icarus Jet” (what could be), but the original Trojan Men do not fare well. Yes Troy gets sacked—though you might also say “knocked up”—but for the men these are euphemisms. They all die.

Worse still (at least from a branding perspective), it’s obvious no one so much as considered the Trojan women. I can’t help but recall Euripides’ play, that “The Trojan Women” is the sort of tragedy that makes “Oedipus Rex” seem like a romcom. It begins on the heels of Cassandra’s rape and cascades into a chorus of suffering. The women become Greek slaves, concubines, mothers, murderers—hardly the stuff of responsible pleasure even when Trojan condoms were first manufactured in 1916.

The brand has only doubled down on its violent incongruities more recently, the best (worst?) example taking shape in the mid-2000s “Trojan Games” campaign:

Perhaps the intentions were pseudo-admirable, aiming to shift the brand’s implication that “sex is war” to “sex is pretend war” at least. But the fucking-Olympics concept had a pretty glaring Achilles Heel: the Olympics were fucking Greek.

3. Pandora Jewelry

This one I kind of love, because its atrocity ironically works. In the abstract, Pandora is the last mythological figure after which you’d want to name a jewelry company. “Here darling, open this pretty little box of—ahh, no! Quick, quick, close it! You’ve let out all the evils of the world!” &c. The only sort of company less appropriate to associate with this myth would be a manufacturer of condoms.

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A post shared by @booksididnt

The reason it strangely works for Official Pandora™—where select scourges I mean styles are currently 25% off—is the word I need to describe its wares is itself so loathsome I use it only under duress: fugly. This company sells the fugliest jewelry you can possibly imagine. Official Pandora™ is an aesthetic plague, in such bad taste that I almost want to call it a threat to civilization. If hating it is elitist, I don’t want to be down to earth.

The “charm” bracelets are especially, epically heinous, so fugly as to be plausibly cursed. I submit as evidence, eyes bleeding, the “American Football Dangle Charm,” the “Spiritual Dreamcatcher Charm,” the “Marvel Hanging Spiderman Dangle Charm,” and the “Disney 100th Anniversary Winnie the Pooh Lab-Grown Diamond Charm.” I could go on—there’s another collab with “Game of Thrones”—but I’m afraid if I do Hope itself will escape, too.

Honorable mentions: Mars Chocolate & Venus Razors

What does the Roman god of war have to do with chocolate? I like to think he gave some to his mistress, Venus, to thank her for shaving her legs—and to his enemies, laced with razor blades.

The very idea of “women’s razors” reeks of sexism—it’s almost as bad as “women’s pens.” “I’m your Venus, I’m your fire, at your desire,” the Gillette ads go, shamelessly misappropriating Shocking Blue to imply women must vanquish their body hair to be sexy and razors are the tool for the job. This is beyond the pale even for those of us unable to overcome our smooth patriarchal conditioning: waxing, epilation, and above all laser hair removal all work far better!

I’ll leave you with Ovid’s version of The Story of Mars and Venus—a gem, short enough to relate in its entirety:

The Sun sees all things first. The Sun, they say,

Was the first one who spied on Mars and Venus

When they were making love. The Sun, offended,

Went with the story to her husband, Vulcan

Telling him all, the when, the how, the where,

And Vulcan dropped whatever he was doing,

And made a net, with such fine links of bronze

No eye could see the mesh: no woolen thread

Was ever so delicate, no spider ever

Spun filament so frail from any rafter.

He made it so the slightest touch would bend it,

The slightest movement make it give, and then

He spread it over the bed, and when the lovers

Came there again, the husband’s cunning art

Caught them and held them fast, and there they were

Held in each other’s arms, and Vulcan, lord

Of Lemnos, opened wide the ivory doors

And called the gods to come and see. They lay there

The two, in bondage, in disgrace. And some one,

Not the least humorous of the gods in Heaven,

Prayed that some day he might be overtaken

By such disgrace himself. And there was laughter

For a long time in Heaven, as the story

Was told and told again. 

No chocolate, no razors—but kudos to the Vulcan Materials Company and Vulcan Brands transportation accessories (“committed to producing expertly designed load management equipment”) for showing how it’s done!

ANJ

PS—a few spring recs:

• The New York Times profile of Phoebe Philo (new subscribers: see here and here)

• Lauren Oyler’s wonderfully judgy essay collection, No Judgment (I also loved her debut novel, Fake Accounts)

• March Madness! Even (especially?) if you have no particular affinity for basketball

• And if you can’t get enough bad branding: