Here comes a Mercedes. You can already smell her.

Mercedes-Benz is currently launching its new fragrance for women, ‘I am Mercedes’. Even the name has a pleasantly definitive ring to it. Not ‘I drive Mercedes’. Not ‘I like Mercedes’. Nor a tentative ‘Maybe Mercedes’.

I am Mercedes.

It would be medically difficult to achieve a stronger sense of brand identification.

Incidentally, the brand’s men’s fragrance sits on the shelf next to it. It’s called ‘Mercedes-Benz Man’. So the man remains a man, whilst the brand stands beside him and gives him a friendly nod. For women, this distinction is absent.

The press release explains that the fragrance celebrates ‘self-assured, strong women who boldly go their own way’. It draws heavily on history: Mercedes Jellinek, the brand’s namesake. Bertha Benz, who simply set off in 1888, thereby undertaking the first long-distance journey by car.

That’s a lovely story, to begin with. It becomes interesting when the strong woman is subsequently reworked in the marketing lab.

There, she is imbued with ‘radiant femininity’, vanilla, musk and white blossoms. Her bottle is diamond-cut, its contents salmon-pink, which, according to Mercedes, conveys ‘sensuality and tenderness’. On top of that comes metallic pink. And because a strong woman apparently needs a little signature even on her perfume, the neck of the bottle bears the handwritten words ‘I am Mercedes’.

You can almost picture Bertha Benz in Wiesloch in 1888, buying ligroin and asking: ‘Do you perhaps have any ylang-ylang left?’

The ligroin was sitting on the shelf there as a cleaning agent for clothes. On the way, she unblocked a clogged petrol pipe with her hatpin and insulated a bare ignition cable with her garter. By the evening of that day, this woman smelled of petrol, hot oil and road dust. It is the only scent in this story that one would recognise immediately.

All of this is advertising, and advertising has to exaggerate. That is precisely why it is occasionally so revealing.

For here, an image of women is emerging that seeks to be both very modern and very old-fashioned at the same time. She charts her own course. She is courageous. She is independent. But please, in salmon pink, sensual, delicate and with orange blossom.

The strong woman is here. She just smells a little bit of the marketing department.

That’s why the campaign is lovely, too. In it, the protagonist drives herself. At least that’s something. And she’s driving a 1968 Mercedes-Benz 280 SL Pagoda – which, for a woman who consistently goes her own way, just happens to be one of the most photogenic convertibles in the company’s history.

The fragrance comes along for the ride. Mercedes, in all seriousness, calls it its “co-pilot”.

Just picture that for a moment.

“Careful, there’s roadworks up ahead.”

“Thanks, orange blossom.”

“Take the second exit.”

“Stay out of it, musk.”

But perhaps that’s precisely the point. Car brands have long since stopped selling just cars. They sell entire parallel universes in which you can wear the brand, put it on, collect it and even spray it on your neck.

Mercedes takes this to the extreme. Its own fragrance range features dozens of bottles: Man and Woman, Land, Sea and Air, plus AMG Black Thrill, Silver Thrill and Red Thrill. Maybach even runs its own ‘Haute Parfumerie’ with names such as Fascinating Oud, Snow White Leather and Charismatic Rose.

So you can now treat yourself to a range of fragrances from standard Mercedes through to AMG and right up to Maybach. This is the only Mercedes model offensive where the transition from AMG to Maybach can be achieved in the bathroom.

And Mercedes is by no means alone.

BMW has also discovered that driving pleasure comes through the nose. Their fragrances are called ‘The Scent of Bergamood’, ‘Amberness’, ‘Woodness’ and ‘Mineralmood’. The M range is particularly lovely: 1972, 1985 and 2025. The 1985 fragrance evokes the birth of the first M3, whilst 2025 captures the dawn of BMW M’s electric era through scent.

The internal combustion engine may disappear. Vetiver remains.

Bentley offers ‘Momentum Unbreakable’, ‘Majestic Cashmere’, ‘Magnetic Amber’, ‘Wild Vetiver’ and ‘Exotic Musk’ – a total of just over a dozen fragrances. ‘Silverlake’ from the men’s range is said to smell like a drive through snow-capped peaks, forests and crystal-clear lakes.

Which should be quite pleasant. It would be more difficult to compose a more authentic Bentley fragrance evoking leather, a golf club car park and a subtle concern about wealth tax.

Porsche Design, on the other hand, sells men’s perfumes with very specific ideas about what freedom smells like. According to the manufacturer, ‘Pure Life’ is an ode to boundless independence. True freedom, it says, lies in going your own way.

For this, the man gets juniper, marine notes and cedarwood. The woman gets orange blossom in salmon pink. One’s own path is apparently furnished according to gender.

The beauty of these fragrances, therefore, isn’t necessarily the scent itself. It’s the art of translation.

A car brand must ask itself: if we weren’t a car, what would we smell like?

BMW replies: of dynamism, history and a mineral mood.

Bentley: of cashmere and a mountain lake where no one is allowed to park.

Porsche Design: of freedom in a linen shirt.

AMG: of thrills. Three times over.

And Mercedes?

Mercedes smells like Mercedes.

We can’t say whether it smells nice. Perhaps ‘I am Mercedes’ is an excellent perfume; after all, it was created by the experienced perfumer Sophie Labbé. The fragrance is available in 30, 50 and 100 millilitres.

A more interesting question is what else is actually being sold alongside it.

After all, over the decades the car industry has learnt to sell people not so much a means of transport as an image of themselves. The adventurer drives an off-roader. The individualist drives a coupé. The successful person sits in the back right-hand seat. The dynamic person conspicuously often has very open country roads ahead of them.

Why should it be any different with perfume? It’s just that without a car, the whole thing becomes wonderfully transparent. There’s no longer a vehicle to offer 500 PS, all-wheel steering or air suspension as justification. There’s just a small bottle of liquid, and the brand’s entire narrative has to carry the weight on its own.

Then you learn that BMW smells of 1985.

That AMG exudes thrills.

That Bentley possesses musk.

And that the Mercedes woman boldly goes her own way, as long as that path leads past orange blossoms and she doesn’t forget her metallic-pink cap.

After all, she’s driving herself.

The fragrance is off the mark.

As a co-pilot.

And at some point, this fragrance utters the very phrase that the same press release uses a few paragraphs later to describe the entire company:

Welcome home.