Study Task 2 : Advert analysis (Berger Theory)

Chanel (1920)

Emporio Armani- Diamonds (2007)

I have chosen to compare these womens perfume advertisements agains the ideology of Edward Bernays. He believed that tapping into a person sub conscious desires would sell a product better than just being sold on itself. I would say that this is very true. And from these two adverts you can see that this convention hasn't really changed at all, and the companies are still extremely successful and make millions of sales worldwide.

The first advert, Chanel, 'every women alive loves Chanel no.5' the tagline alone to me is saying that you aren't a 'woman' if you don't own Chanel no.5, and I think that therefore if you are not a woman you are not attractive or desired like the woman pictured in the ad who has a man on either arm pining for her. And so according to Bernays theory this goes into a deep human desire to be loved and to be in fact sexually desirable. 
Also as a women looking at this would perhaps make you envious of the women in the advert and so to be like her, or even more you have to have Chanel;

 'it offers him an image of himself made glamourous by the product or opportunity it is trying to sell. The image then makes him envious of himself and what he might be. Yet what makes this self-which-he-might-be enviable ?? The envy of others'  (Berger, J. 1972. p132).

And so what this means in relation to this advert is that it is offering the consumer the chance to be a woman, and to be sexually desirable only if they buy the product will they become this, and how they will know they have become this is they will be envied, just like they envy the women pictured. Not only this but she appears to be wearing a wedding dress and they seem to be her too grooms suggesting that due to her perfume she is now so wanted that she is being flooded with offers of marriage, but not just from anyone, from affluent men (the suits and hairstyles point to this representation of affluence). Not only is she desirable, but she has perhaps gained more wealth from this, and so this leads on to the next point of Berger...

'money is life... but in the sense that money is the token of, an the key to, every human capacity. The power to spend money is the power to live'  (Berger, J. 1972. p143).

money is an underlying theme of this advert and I think that it really supports this statement Berger has made, that money is power and therefore

'Those who have the power become lovable'  (Berger, J. 1972. p143).

And so really it is a cycle of money, power, love. And this is all promised to the audience through a bottle of perfume.

'It proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, or our lives, by buying something more.'  (Berger, J. 1972. p131).

 And due to the context of the advert the 1920's this was especially important in society. That women where married young and that they had to be the best to get a husband.

The second advert is a more modern version of the first, it is not suggesting the idea of being wanted for marriage, as nowadays it isn't really an important convention in society. However it still offers the ability to be sexually desirable. 

'She is meant to imagine herself transformed by the product into an object of envy for others, an envy which will then justify her loving herself'  (Berger, J. 1972. p134).

This is sold through the ideal of glamour. The celebrity is a enviable figure and many want to be like her as she is deemed, sexy, powerful, wealthy, independent. And so if you  don't have the perfume then you can't love yourself as you aren't as good as her without the product, and so I would say the perfume is being sold of the ideas mentioned, and not in fact its purpose/ function which is its smell. And this is the exact theory of Berger.