fragrance advertisement analysis (early draft).

 The 'Vega' advertisement is from the 20's, but by then, Guerlain have already been around for almost one hundred years, so I guess you could say that Guerlain have had some experience in the field of perfume advertising. There were a multitude of advertisements I could have chose from the 20's, but I chose the minimalistic one because of how different it is. Firstly, in the 20's, photography was becoming more mainstream. Ad agency's wanted to have the best technology in their advert's to seem progressive and fresh. Guerlain were either ignorant of recent innovations, or this was intentional. They made a simplistic and minimal poster with a mere six colours. Guerlain proved that they don't need fancy new technology to make a powerful advert, as they're skilled enough to do so with a bare-bones simple design. Unlike the other perfume adverts I saw that demean and objectify women, this empowers women. This shows a woman with a spiky chess piece behind her head, empowering her as an authoritative and threatening figure. You can see that she's the higher figure in this poster; that she is above all. She's not objectified or demeaned by anyone; she looks like she's the type of woman that could run a business, or a state, not the type of woman that gets drunk at parties and sells herself. 'But Guerlain' they shriek, 'how can I be like this powerful and competent-looking woman?' Simple. Buy their perfume. That's obviously what they're selling, because you have to sell something in this industry, so why not sell something positive and less demeaning?


After feeling positive about the advertising industry for a short moment, let's move on to Centaur, a surprisingly sexualised image for the 1950's. I thought the 50's was a relatively conservative decade, and the liberalism emerged a decade later, but this advert is making me feel differently about that time period. Of course, it was a sexist time, so the rampant sexualisation of women wasn't uncommon, as displayed here. Of course, retro and nostalgia sells, as proven with most Indie Games and period dramas like Mad Men or Downton Abbey or Boardwalk Empire, but Centaur is taking retro to its logical conclusion. Instead of basing the advert 50 or so years into the past, it goes Ancient Greek. I've noticed that perfume adverts feed off needs like desire and lust. This one, for example, depicts an old man who probably wouldn't have been a ladies man, using Centaur, and then becoming a ladies man. This shows that if you use Centaur, you will become attractive and desirable with no real effort. It's slightly depressing how our society wants everything the easy way. For instance, 'The secret how to lose weight fast!' or some other demeaning untruth for the shallow. In this case, the advert is selling the idea of having beautiful women for the price of a perfume bottle. Anyway, Centaur is actually a Greek Mythological creature that is half man, half horse, or put simply, 'Half man, half animal'. The name of the perfume is subtly alluding that it's okay to let your animal side go.

Contrary to popular belief, women aren't the only group of people marginalized and stereotyped. What could be more obvious than a man's clenched fist as a fragrance bottle to sell masculinity and male pride/superiority? It uses typically male colours, black and blue (slang for the bruising of a persons flesh) and uses a block capital, bold and rugged font as its title. It's the most male-power fragrance I've seen in a while. A clenched fist represents a fighters fist, almost explicitly saying that this cologne will strengthen you. If you buy this cologne, you will become one of 'the brave', further selling exclusivity and desire.

The 'Vega' advert is almost 100 years old, yet little has changed. These three fragrance adverts all sell similar desires, whether it be power, ownership, masculinity, and yet a sense of falseness. Of course spraying cologne on your clothes wont make you stronger, of course spraying perfume wont make you powerful, but they want you to think that it does.