Givenchy Advertising

Sight, sound, smell, taste and touch are the five critical tools used by humans to navigate and understand the ever changing world. Whether it be throwing a football down a field or writing a proposal for a business project, humans rely on their senses to do everything that encompasses their lives. Advertisers have learned to use these senses as a way to connect with consumers on a direct level. To have a truly successful ad in todays market, all five senses need to be incorporated in some way. It is no easy task for marketers to fully capture each of the senses, however, Givenchy does a great job with their “Gentleman Only” ad campaign.

Givenchy has primarily marketed its products to women over the past several years but have recently decided to launch a men’s fragrance in order to capture market share. Givenchy understands who their target market is for their men’s fragrance, and displays it from the start with this specific advertisement. As Givenchy is a luxury brand, its target market falls into the high income class. The particular name for this demographic has been coined a ‘Yummy’, an acronym for ‘Young Urban Males’, by a report published by HSBC Global Research (Donaldson, 2014). Yummies are urban, young to middle aged men, from wealthy cities such as London, they are high income earners and not afraid to spend money on beauty products and accessories. These men primarily work high class, 9-5 jobs and want to look and feel good while doing so. They put a lot of value in their social status, and appearance has a lot of significance to them. These men believe that performance and appearance go hand in hand therefore they do not think twice when buying high priced luxury goods. “(Yummies are) driven by psychological and social trends whereby consumers prefer to display social status earlier on (while older, better-off consumers may have less to prove and will tend to buy for themselves rather than to impress others)” (Roose, n.d.). This target market was the initial focus of Givenchy’s Gentleman Only advertisement.

The advertisement that Givenchy has chosen immediately captures the eye of the viewer by using a vibrant red color on an otherwise blue image. The woman under the umbrella is the first thing that draws attention and this is important because she is the main focus in understanding the true meaning of the ad. The color red has many associations, the color choice in this specific ad could be related to the fact that red is a warm color being used in contrast against a cold blue color (Whitfield TW, 1990). The woman under the umbrella has the luxury of being dry as the rain falls everywhere across the image, except above her. The man displays a gentleman like action by keeping her dry and warm while he sacrifices himself. Another color association could be the connection that red has with sexual appeal (Alter, 2013). Women in red dresses have been proven to attract more romantic attention than women in any other color. The man covering the woman with the umbrella most likely signifies his romantic side and his sexual desire for the woman.

The use of smell is difficult to capture in an image; however, it is possible. The smell of rain is a very pleasant odour. The odour, caused by ozone being carried from the clouds (NOAA, 2010), is associated with being fresh or clean. Ozone is actually used as an odour killer which is where it garners its reputation as a clean smell (VanOsdell, 1997). This correlation between rain and freshness can create a subliminal message within the consumer’s mind that Givenchy’s fragrance will demonstrate the same characteristics. As the product itself is a fragrance, incorporating some sort of odour related correlation within the advertisement is extremely important in order to market the product successfully.

The sound of rain evokes a feeling of comfort and relaxation (Bright, 2015). The dichotomy between the intense color of the red dress and the relaxing sound of rain with the blue background may be an attempt to keep the ad from being too strong. It could also be a mental queue for the viewer to associate the smell of the fragrance as not being too intense.

The overall exposure of this advertisement is done in a manner that makes it simple for the viewer to focus in on what is important. Their use of color immediately draws the viewers eyes to the main subject, which is the woman under the umbrella dressed in a vibrant red top. The woman is the only subject that is not colored in blue or white, therefore, it would be very difficult for the viewer to miss such an intrusive color, especially with such a dark background. The next thing to jump out is the bottle of Givenchy itself, which is very large and reflects a contrast between the dark background in a much less invasive way.

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