  We explore the possibilities of breaking conformal symmetry spontaneously by
introducing flavour branes into conformal holographic backgrounds in the probe
limit. A prototype model of such a mechanism is based on placing D7 - anti-D7
configuration in the Klebanov-Witten conifold based model. In this paper we
generalize this model. We conjecture on the required topology of the
backgrounds and the corresponding probe brane embeddings. We identify several
models that obey these requirements and admit spontaneous breaking of conformal
invariance. These include type IIB conifold based examples, dual to defect
field theories based on the conifold, and type IIA constructions based on the
ABJM model. We identify the dilaton, the corresponding Goldstone boson, discuss
its effective action and address the "a-term". We briefly discuss the relevance
of these models to the pseudo dilaton.
