NatGeo cheapens its brand by linking with vile air freshener

Love the planet? Love the clean smell of Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone? Breathe deep as National Geographic sells its brand down the river

National Geographic says proudly - and with real justification - that it has been "inspiring people to care about the planet since 1888". My memory doesn't stretch back that far, but I can certainly remember as a child growing up in the 1980s receiving my annual subscription to the magazine with true excitement each Christmas. I used to collect all the pull-out maps and pore over those epic photographic essays of far-off deserts, jungles, reefs, tundra, ice caps and cities with genuine wonder. A few years ago I stumbled across the 1969 edition marking the Apollo 11 lunar landing in a charity shop and snapped it up instantly. When I got home, I gazed at it with child-like awe.
So it was with a considerable sense of disappointment and deflation that I saw an ad on TV recently urging me to buy an Ambi Pur plug-in air freshener produced "in association with National Geographic". Surely not, I thought. National Geographic, one of the world's most recognised and respected brands, would never demean itself by agreeing to a marketing tie-up with one of the most pointless consumer items of the modern age – an air freshener that you plug into an electric socket so that it can periodically pump its revolting, synthetic fragrance at you?
I later went online to check that my eyes hadn't deceived, but, no, there it was: a homepage for "World Scents Air Freshener: Ambi Pur's new Range of National Geographic Fragrances – Natural Scents Inspired by the World".
For the last 50 years Ambi Pur has led the way in creating some of the highest quality fragrances, ensuring that nothing but the finest scents find their way into your home. In our quest to bring you authentic scents inspired by the natural world, we've called on the experience of National Geographic. As one of the world's largest non-profit scientific and educational organisations, its mission is to increase global understanding and promote conservation of our planet through exploration, research and educational programmes. For more than a century, National Geographic's explorers have discovered beautiful places, witnessed stunning sights and experienced amazing fragrances. Now Ambi Pur has captured these authentic and natural scents for your home.
Can someone please explain to me how endorsing an electric plug-in air freshener is able to "increase global understanding and promote conservation of our planet through exploration, research and educational programmes"? Maybe the website can explain?
In the 121 years since they were founded, National Geographic's explorations have taken them to every corner of the globe. These travels, with all their sights, sounds and smells, have inspired a dedicated range of authentic natural scents for you to enjoy at home. Nevada Desert Flower, Japan Tatami and Alaska Glacier Bay are made with natural essences and packaged in recyclable materials, are available in plug-in air fresheners, candles and fragrance reeds.
Nope, still not getting it. In fact, now I'm even more enraged. Since when is using the name of a world heritage site and US National Park – namely, Alaska's Glacier Bay – even remotely a good idea when trying to flog such useless tat, especially when you know that it needlessly consumes electricity? Let's recap: glaciers and emissions from power stations are not exactly the best of buddies at the moment, are they?
And how does one go about recreating the scent of Alaska's Glacier Bay? Well, here's the ingredient listing from the website of Sara Lee, Ambi Pur's parent company (not for long it seems as it is being bought, according to the financial press, by another friend of the environment, Proctor & Gamble – if it can hurdle an EU investigation:
Ppg-3 Ethyl Ether, Parfum, Linalool, Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Hydroxyisohexyl 3-Cyclohexene Carboxaldehyde, Hydroxycitronellal, Geraniol, Coumarin, Citronellol, Cinnamyl, Alcohol, Limonene, Cinnamal
Mmmmm, I love the smell of Hydroxyisohexyl 3-Cyclohexene Carboxaldehyde in the morning. Don't you? Actually, you may well do as it's a synthetic fragrance that has a smell something akin to Lily of the Valley. But when did you last come across Hydroxyisohexyl 3-Cyclohexene Carboxaldehyde up a glacier in Alaska?
Seriously, National Geographic shouldn't need to cheapen itself and its long-earned reputation like this. This is a car crash of inappropriately aligned brands that could so easily have been avoided.
But perhaps this is the inevitable result when you set off down that slippery slope of commercial tie-ups? Last year, I took a tour around the new National Geographic store in London's Regent Street. It caused me some shivers of concern, but nothing on the scale of this marriage with Ambi Pur. Please consider me the relative looking down at this marriage with thoroughly disapproving eyes.