“It’s your chance. Embrace it.” This is the slogan for CHANCE, a Chanel fragrance. The ad is featured in the pages of Teen Vogue magazine, whose target audience is teenage girls ages twelve to seventeen. The ad is also used on Chanel’s website. The young, white model in the photo is an example of the target audience for this perfume.
This fragrance sells for about seventy dollars per bottle, which is below the price of the company’s other fragrances. Since the target audience is teenage girls, it would make sense that the perfume would cost less than others. Still, the high prices of Chanel keep the brand classy. Therefore, teenagers from the upper-middle classes are likely to buy this product.
The ad contains a girl embracing the bottle of perfume wearing only a bow on top of her head. Though slightly covered by the perfume bottle and entwined in a vine of pink flowers, she is nude.
The girl is both young and beautiful, and has her eyes closed as if she were dreaming. The places where you can purchase this perfume (Macy’s and Chanel.com) are printed in the top-left corner. The fragrance slogan is written on the bottom of the page, which completes the ad.
The ad is literally saying this fragrance is the chance you should embrace; however, the picture illustrates otherwise. Because the model is wearing a bow on top of her head, it’s implied her beauty, sexuality, and perfection is the chance this product offers.
The ad uses the technique of simple solutions, by saying if you buy this perfume guys will want to take a chance on you. This means if you wear this perfume, guys will like you and make a move. In this ad, Chanel is saying if you don’t buy this product, no one will take a chance on you. This is bad because Chanel is illustrating guys will not like girls who don’t wear this perfume, which is false and offensive.
Sex and beauty are used to sell this perfume. Sexuality is symbolized through the slogan of this ad. The “chance” the brand is advertising isn’t the perfume, it’s the girl. The bow on top of her head signifies that she is the present, not the fragrance. Chanel wants girls to believe this product will make them a desirable present.
Using beautiful people in this ad is also a technique exploited. The model is a white, soft, and young female. Through this, the ad suggests beauty is defined by a thin body, radiant skin, and delicate face. And if you aren’t all of these things, you’re not worth a chance. This discredits girls who aren’t as beautiful as the model.
This ad contains false hope for the consumer of this fragrance. The price and size of the fragrance is left out of the ad, along with the actual benefits of the product. Buying this perfume isn’t going to make the consumer as beautiful as the model. In fact, this perfume isn’t going to make the consumer better looking. If consumers see past the advertising techniques used in this ad, they’ll realize the only chance the product offers is the name itself.