Envy: Love's Adversary
The advertisement is promoting Dior's product J'adore. Similar to all the other advertisements surrounding this product, J'adore is presented in a warm, golden light. The model, Charlize Theron, is beautiful and glowing. Her luminous skin, gorgeous hair, and femininity are supposed to epitomize a woman. This is interpreted by the viewer of the ad and, in turn, the audience now covets such effeminateness. This creates a mood of envy in the viewer, and this jealousy will make them more likely to purchase the perfume. The name, J'adore, is French for "I love" or "I adore". The French language is often associated with romanticism and love, which adds to the allure of the fragrance.
The target market of J'adore is mostly women, ranging from about 16-50, that are well-off financially and looking for confidence and glamorous beauty. These women would be fined-tuned into popular culture because J'adore advertisements can be found in well-known fashion, beauty, and gossip magazines.
Put simply, the goal of this advertisement is to sell J'adore. The company uses Theron's beauty to sell a product to women who want to be more beautiful. The company has been selling J'adore for more than a decade, and the popular name-brand, high-class product sells for an expensive price. However, in the bigger picture, we can see that this company and many others target their audience's sinful side to sell the product. They play on the viewer's insecurity, their desire to be considered beautiful, and use it to run a lucrative business. This envy displaces the viewer's love for herself and exploits her self-confidence. According to Evagrius Ponticus, the second most deadly sin of mankind is envy; marketers are flourishing with the freedom that society acquiesces, and they use this sin to appeal to humanity's sinful nature. While the marketing may be lucrative, the heart abuse is also effective.
I thought it was interesting how you said that advertisements focus on the use of deadly sins in order to sell their product. It makes the marketing industry appear evil! I like how you established historical background of the perfume as well as the use of language and its meaning in the advertisement. You could also say that the audience targets women who are already beautiful, but want to show off what they can afford by using this product.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Katya; the use of the seven deadly sins does make the marketing industry appear evil. I also like how Katya looks at the perspective of the "already" beautiful women. But I would like to add that the use of the "golden" color could also refer to wealth and popularity.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your take on this advertisement, the way you analyzed how the advertisement was playing on the audience's feelings of jealousy in a way to manipulate them into perhaps purchasing this product. The terms such as 'heart abuse' and 'exploit' you used while describing the advertisement's techniques reveal negative connotations and thus we can see you aren't too happy with how this company is going about their marketing. Which I found interesting as well, seeing how the other comments under this entry that both have agreed on the marketing industry appearing to be evil. I'm slightly curious, while I do agree that this is a devious way to sell products, do you think that the company advertising would agree that they are consciously trying to manipulate their audience? Also, do you think people who do not recognize sins, perhaps they are not religious, find these advertisements so manipulative, or recognize them as such? Or do you think that within society most people have similar sets of morals, therefore they would still have a similar take on this? I'm not sure if I worded these questions perfectly, but I've always wondered if individual interpretation can lead to marketing schemes not seeming very nefarious, if at all.
ReplyDeleteOh whoa the text is very small on your blog.
ReplyDeleteAnyway yeah I agree with the things people have said on here! It was really good how you talked about the use of color in this advertisement, and how the fact that everything is gold symbolizes that this is a product for the richer crowd, yacht-owners and such, or at least it suggests that you can maybe achieve this lifestyle if you buy our expensive product.
Does anybody know what this smells like? I think it would have to smell like actual gold to be worth the price tag. I don't know what gold smells like.
Good post!