In this essay, I am going to analyse and establish the main points and details of the advertisement Echo Woman by Davidoff, through use of image, logo and design.
The conspicuous “Echo” advertisement portrays a beautiful young model with wind blowing against her chest and brown scintillating hair, caricaturing the perfumes achievement in somewhat way. The model is leaning backwards posing in a decisive way, a sexual pose emanating a desire of compassion, sex and romance. Her head tilted back and her eyes closed softly emphasising her facial expression and her sexually attractive image. Her beautiful pink dress, with pink roses pinned on her breasts imparting the natural blossoming scent of flowers, implying, who would not buy this perfume?
Davidoff Echo Woman offers harmony and oneness for a woman - one with herself and one with the world simultaneously. A dreamy moment - sensual and private.
You may be thinking that the perfume targets a young female audiences, however, this is not necessarily the case, the perfume also associates the older age class. Buying this perfume somewhat brings the feeling of youth into their young twenties. The males also buy the perfume too, they envisage that their girlfriend/wife could be as sexy as the model. Even the background has an denouement of youth, sex and romance. The advertisements persuasive techniques employed by Echo Woman is mind-blowing. Every single detail is thought out carefully, the wind, the background; it may be portraying that the “Echo” fragrance knows everything you ever admired.
The title “Echo Woman” in capitals apart from the endorsement made by Davidoff purposes a simple and expression of the meaning, nonetheless we do not miss the slogan, “Listen To Your Heart”. The “heart” phrase attracts the meaning of love, it may even be hiding a subliminal message, making the customers drool for the product. Going back to the image of the model, the perfume is also linked to the slogan, as the perfume is pressed against her sexually attractive right breast. Normally the heart is said to be on the right hand side of your breasts. In my opinion that’s the subliminal message.
In conclusion, Davidoff has chained youth with romance, establishing ecstasy for all female audience. The human race always “Judges the book by it’s cover” and we cannot stop ourselves, a sexy image promotes the whole advertisement industry, making it a top priority for perfumes. As you can see the advertisement is very eye-catching so everyone who walks past a poster or flicking through a newspaper will stop, look and read the advertisement. Whether or not they well buy it, that is another story, but at least they can pass the word around to their friends and family, making it an additional promotion for the company.
The Opium advert is made by Yves Saint Laurent, born 1936 in Oran, Algeria, he studied in Paris, graduating in modern languages, and was employed by Christian Dior in 1955 after winning an International Wool Secretariat design competition. He launched its first women's perfume, Y in 1964. In 1971, the design house unveiled its Rive Gauche perfume; that same year, Jean Loup Sieff photographed Yves in the nude for the advertising campaign of his first men's cologne Pour Hommes. 1977 saw the launch of the very popular Opium perfume.
Opium. What does Opium mean? Opium isn’t just a perfumes name, it is genuinely known to be a drug in which you smoke. Like Marijuana the drug Opium is highly addictive, giving the perfume a esoteric background. Even the name itself gives the straight consciousness of addiction to it; without taking the drug itself. During the fifteenth century, the drug was limited due to its rarity and expense causing complete and utter mayhem. The drug was also confirmed to be a recreational use of the drug in a sexual context. Yves Saint Laurent took a large risk using such a delicate name.
“I can resist everything except temptation.” Oscar Wilde associates the fact that humans simply can not resist temptation. Why smoke? Why drink? Its all temptation, therefore I believe that Opium is ‘naughty’ in a way, which means we are tempted. Even the male sex would buy this for their girlfriend or wife. Immediately we know the techniques Laurent uses are different.
The advertisement features the model Kate Moss, posed in a sexual way wearing a sexy dress, drawing attention to itself. Holding her hair back and opening her chest wide open, the model at their attractive provocative young age, surrounding mirrors amplifying the pose. We our beliefs, association the perfume with the sexual pose connoting power, potential, passion and potential danger. Low level camera shot emphasises her dominance, giving the conceit of power attracting the female audience. The female audience may be thinking, ‘if I buy this perfume, I am going to feel the ultimate power.’ They are true.
The title “Opium” is strategically placed in white large eye-catching font, however, you may have not noticed but the perfume is placed diagonally opposite to the title. It may be connoting after all that only a few drops will make you powerful, the model itself show the audience the power.
The logic behind the advertisement is almost in all essence sexual. They are using a scantly clad woman who is very attractive with bright colours standing next to a bottle of whiskey. As well they try and use their slogan that goes with their product and apply it to a completely different situation with a woman. They show how much “better it gets” when it is aged seven years. This is very degrading to the woman who is in it because they say that she was ugly in the first photo but after seven years less clothing and all the make up is so much better. But the problem that I see with this is that there are just so few women who actually look like that it sets a bar that is just too high for people to reach. Not to mention there is nothing wrong with the girl on the left who is just plain and simple. When you have to wear next to nothing to get noticed it just continues to drain away from the collective respectability of our society. Another way that they make the photo on the left look worse is they don’t do the hair all up she is wearing a wrinkled shirt plus simple ear rings and a simplistic vest.
In my opinion, By using ingenious tactics like these, the populace is deceived into buying a product that may not do what is required, or a product which a buyer may have never really needed. This is why advertising is a bad thing, for our society. In today's society, one must consider - Is there any advantage of advertising? In many cases it is only disadvantage - an annoying hindrance in our daily lives. It gets on our nerves, distorts the truth, and adds to the cost of the products.
Word Count: 1557 words
