The social-media portion of Axe's "Summer of Temptation" campaign has thus been built around soliciting thoughts from both sexes about what they find tempting in the other.
The idea isn't for Gold to replace Dark, but that if you liked Dark, you may like Gold too, Mr. McCarthy said. Scents don't necessarily have pre-ordained life cycles, though some last longer than others, he said, with some, such as Phoenix and Kilo having hung around more than a decade.
Extending popular scents is an idea borrowed from prestige fragrance, but Axe sees itself fully prepared to play at that level of sophistication. Some of that, Mr. McCarthy said, comes from Ann Gottlieb, the "nose" behind Axe for two decades, who also works on such prestige brands as CK and Marc Jacobs.
As with the development of Gold Temptation, it's hard to say generally which comes first – the fragrance, or the story Axe builds around it with marketing, Mr. McCarthy said. "It's a courtship in the development process. In fact, most often they happen together, and they actually influence each other."