Zut Alors! Fresh Air in a Can…
By Don Ferguson on Saturday, December 14, 2013
With Christmas on the horizon, we all know that this year’s must have is nothing to do with flying mechanical fairies, the Breaking Bad box set or latest iPad, but is in-fact…a can of air.
Well in the words of Mark, and indeed Spencer – “this is not just any air, this is French country air bunged in a can by some youthful French chancer”. The little ‘voleur’ in question is none other than 22 year old student Antoine Deblay, who headed deep into the countryside on a summer visit to his idyllic hometown of Montcuq and decided he’d bring the enviable country air to market – making huge profits as a result.
A bit of packaging based jiggery-pokery later and ‘Air de Montcuq’ was born, costing the unsuspecting consumer around 5.5 euros (that’s about £5), plus shipping.
When he put the proposal on French crowd funding site kisskissbankbank.com, he shrugged his Gallic shoulders, rolled a spitty roll-up and thought nothing would happen – but low and behold he managed to get over £600 and began production. With the French press willing him on, and an uncharacteristic decision not to surrender, he started a website and began selling the stuff to stupid people across the planet.
That said, this clearly shows that it is still possible to dupe an ever cleverer set of consumers with some glittery packaging and a slick marketing plan – as is clear from the tongue-in-cheek product descriptions on his website, including…
“Air de Montcuq is 100% organic; it immerses you in the depths of the city to refresh your ideas. Ideal when you are in need of creative inspiration.” *pffft*
And: “Attention, irreplaceable content, consumable once. Do not leave it open.” *hmmm*
As well as his mission statement on provenance and production, in which he claims that “In order not to empty Montcuq’s air, we limit our harvest to 10 liters of air a week.” *snort*
In reality, the real reason may be the fact that “Montcuq” is often mispronounced as “moncul” in French France, which quote simply means “my ass” – with “Air de Montcuq” translating to “the wind of my arse”.
Anyway, people seem to love a bit of canned air and it’s going gangbusters for the little chap, so good on him and remember, if you want to pick one up – move swiftly as its selling like hotcakes.
