Note, as you look at 'French' brands, how many of these French (or perhaps only pseudo-French) products have accent marks, something that English/American brands wouldn't have.

• An ad for a brand called Façonnable which is trying to suggest that it is "fashionable" but with a dubious French brand name: the word is a French word, but is not used to mean 'fashionable.'. Note that the ad claims that this brand was designed in France (but not that it originates in France or is manufactured in France.)

• Use of French more to attract immediate attention than anything else; first it says it's not a faucet, but the picture says it is. Then it says, well, okay, it's a step-back-in-time faucet. Pretends to be a work of art, called (appropriately) Ceci n'est pas un faucet (faucet not being a French word in any event.) This is a take-off on a surrealist painting by Magritte, entitled Ceci n'est pas une pipe.

• An ad for a perfume, manufactured by Boucheron called Jaïpur, a town in India. The image shows an unclothed woman, bound at the wrists by the Boucheron container, waiting for someone to do ... what?

• An ad for a product called Théorie, the French word for 'theory.' The text of the ad says "For every face problem there's a beautiful solution." Is this supposed to be perhaps 'scientific' or something? Why not call it Solution ?

• An ad series for a product called séxual which is intended for both men and women.

• An ad for Issey Miyake's L'eau bleue pour homme. It appears to be the case that Japanese fashion and couture prefers French branding; it's also the case that Issey Miyake has been resident in France for many years. (Note the clever use of blue background.)

• Ads for Lancôme beauty products, a brand name which has been deliberately created to contain the "circumflex" accent over the [o] of Lancome. Go to the Lancôme Ô oui page to read more about this product and its 'history'. Notice that almost every Lancôme product has an accent mark of some sort as part of the brand. This page tells the whole story of this "circumflex" accent. (See a translation of this page here.) My favorite is the one called Optim'Âge with a circumflex  in the word for "age" The French word Âge has a circumflex accent, but when capitalized, this word doesn't usually contain the circumflex, for aesthetic reasons. Here it's added just because Lancôme seems to want to use the circumflex as part of their branding! Another one is a suntan lotion called Sôleil which means 'sun' (without a circumflex accent, however) in French. But putting a circumflex on it gives it cachet, n'est-ce pas? (It also allows them to copyright the trademark!)

• Here's a page that just lists perfume ads: including the Ô oui motif, but also including other language perfume ads. Which languages are used for this, and which not?

• An ad for a `French' beauty product with an improbable (or perhaps even impossible ) French name, something called Originalé ("A woman's power, a man's passion.")

• An ad for a beauty product called Précision, which again uses an accented vowel to mark the product as 'foreign.'

• Last, but not least, an animated ("flash") website that takes you to the Languedoc wine region of southern France. All in English, but wonderful stereotypes of life in southern France. (Note in the fine print that Red Bicyclette USA is based in Healdsburg, California.)