This print ad was created by Guess to help promote a new fragrance. It was targeted towards young white females, ages sixteen to thirty, middle class and up. You can tell the target audience because the model used in the ad is an attractive white woman in her 20’s. Also the perfume sells for around $60 at Macy’s department store and a few other vendors, so the buyer needs to have extra spending money.
The picture is centered around a woman sitting on a bed with only a necklace and a black skirt on. She is covering her chest with a curtain. Her hair is messy but her makeup is flawless. The words Guess Seductive and a perfume bottle are in the center of the picture. On the bottom of the picture, in small letters, it reads “The new fragrance for woman…available at Macy’s.”
This ad uses a beautiful model to help sell their perfume. The makers of this perfume hope that women see this picture of a skinny woman with perfect skin, flowing hair, and beautiful makeup and want to be like her. They infer that to be like her, you must wear their perfume. This can also be applied to support that people like simple solutions. Instead of putting in effort to look like the model, women can put on this perfume and feel as though she is seductive and beautiful.
Symbolism can also be found in this ad. The woman has messy hair and is half naked. Based on these facts and because the name of this perfume is seduction, we assume that some sexual act already occurred or will shortly. This helps to further promote you need this perfume to be desirable and attractive to men. Guess is using these symbols because of the simple fact; sex sells.
All of these tactics together promote woman as sexual objects and not people. A woman who sees this ad should be offended and not want to support this message. However, someone who purchases this perfume after seeing this ad is supporting this message because nowhere on the ad is the scent of the perfume described. That means that the buyer wants this product just because of the advertisement.
This ad fails to mention a few things: the price of the perfume, how it smells, and what is happening in the ad. These problems could be fixed by getting rid of the picture of the woman and providing a description of the perfume—how it smells, the size of the bottle, and how much the bottle costs.