Assignment II – Advertising campaign analysis

“Chanel N˚5, Inevitable.”

The Advertising campaign for Chanel N˚5, released on October 15th, 2012, had for the fist time a man as its spokes model: no more, no less than Brad Pitt. The choice created a lot of noise regarding the price of this commercial (around 7 million dollars just for Brad Pitt) in connection to its potential impact.

It is a 35 seconds commercial that has Brad Pitt speaking in a poetic and sensual approach; he talks, in low pitch voice about journeys, plans and dreams as things that pass, but Chanel stays, wherever he goes, relating the product as his luck, his fate and his fortune.

Target Audience

Chanel N˚5 has a specific target audience. The perfume targets women starting from 30 years old. It is a high price product, from $70 to $300, depending on the size. It is a very classical product existing since 1920.

This campaign tries to bring Chanel N˚5 as an inevitable product, giving the women targeted the feeling of being safe and stable wherever Chanel is. Not just about the journeys, the plans, but about the dreams - the present and the future. It plays with their psychological as it targets mainly the influential young-adults generation to start using it. Psychographically it targets the women with high educational level, the businesswomen and the classy lifestyle.

Principles and Commandments

The campaign message follows several principles and commandments. They don’t try to entertain the public, although they did hire one of the world’s most famous actor; concentrating on one idea and keeping it simple by using only one neutral background. The campaign was very bold and audacious with the principle of “ You are not always your audience”, trying to, for the first time, have only a male spokes model for a women’s perfume, but they seemed to have dealt well with this. They tried to abstract the information in a poetic way, persuading the audience not through the information but through the content and the way it was spoken.

The commandments were also followed by using very clear language, speaking about the journey, about the audience, not about the company. In the end, when he says “Chanel number five: inevitable”, he brings, in a metaphorical way, the women to action; in other words stating that everywoman should have it. The commandments about the contact is also followed once there isn’t really the need for stating it in an advertisement; they also don’t try to use humour and also they don’t try to sell through sex, even though they have a sensual approach through the way Brad Pitt speaks.

Channels Used

The channel that Chanel used mostly was the Television, but also the Internet, Billboards and the Print. In my opinion the right channels for this partnership between Chanel and Brad Pitt were well chosen, although the Black and White video was seen as “not fitting” to the brand by many. But the television is still the most effective channel; so, they made sure that this commercial will reach their target audience. I also believe that the printed advertisements in magazines, billboards, airports and other channels could be very successful because of Brad Pitt’s fame and because of the way he looks, which in my opinion fits the brand very well.

Conclusion

The overall conclusion is that the campaign could persuade a considerable number of 30, 40 or 50 year old women to buy the product by using the 48 year old, good looking and charming actor as the “attracting factor”.

The effectiveness of the campaign is probably at risk once it was spread in all media and social networks as a joke and as an absurd campaign. It has been only three weeks since the campaign was released there are already a lot of parodies and copies of the video imitating the actor. These videos try to show how wrong Chanel did to make this advertisement the way they did and above all spend around 7 million dollars on this campaign.

In my opinion the way it was done and the language used can bring new customers and increase the sales of Chanel N˚5, because it has a very classy, elegant and simple style, just like the product they are trying to sell and the target audience. Actually I could say that they targeted it even too well, and that is the main reason it created bad impressions on the audience that was not the main target. It made them feel excluded. But I am sure these videos and comments will not effect the decision of the actual target audience to purchase the product.