The intended audience is generally wealthy classy women. The intended message of the ad is the charm or beauty that these young rich women possess after wearing the perfume. The illusion of the skull created with the girl and the mirror in the ad gives a new perspective to the viewers of relating the perfume, Poison with skull and deadly, which suggests that the perfume gives off a deadly aura to women, or to have "looks to kill" so to say. From this ad, it also suggests that beauty is poisonous and can kill a man's heart. But the key point of the ad is that the perfume demands attention to any woman who wears it.
This poster most probably will be eye catching to teenagers and middle aged people. The first thing that the audience will see is a skull. Teenagers are always interested in this kind of subject. Besides that, the whole poster is showing an atmosphere of 80s vintage feeling. People who have been in those days will also get attracted into it. Therefore, middle aged people will be drawn to the poster. Furthermore, they were in their teens during that time. But mainly women will be attracted to this poster. Makeup and cosmetics are something that every woman will get attracted into.
People understand that the creator of this poster should know what a skull means and what it symbolizes. Hence, it is a commonly known sign which will influence the audience as a subliminal stimulus. Besides, death and poison can be related to mystery which can also lead to beauty at the same time. Even from before, society has always associated skulls with death, mortality or evil. However, in ancient society, skulls gave the meaning of life and honoring humanity in flesh. The meaning of skulls in modern society and ancient society are at polar ends. Therefore, in order to thoroughly understand the meaning of this poster, the audience must be educated in both modern society and ancient society’s cultures.
The creator of the ad attempts to relate beauty and death which could be cliché if not executed well. The original concept of the media composition was an illustration titled “All is Vanity” by Charles Allan Gilbert, a prominent American illustrator which we will get to later. The concept of the illustration was later reused by David Bertman to create the ads for Dior’s “Poison” perfume. This recreation of the Vanity illusion was a collaborative effort by his team at CLM/BBDO. David Bertman used the illusion of the skull shaped structure to enhance the characteristic of “Poison”, which is the title of the ad.
As this ad is based on an optical illusion and how it plays around with the idea of beauty being poisonous and it being able to kill a man’s heart; one will only be able to decipher it in such manner if and only if the audience seeing this ad is able to see the optical illusion itself. If the audience is not able to see the optical illusion of this ad, one would most probably conclude that the ad is set in the 80s, features a gorgeous lady looking in the mirror beautifying herself with a lot of perfumes in her table and is promoting the perfume 'Poison " by Dior.
This text has not been widely shown around the globe as this advertisement was mainly shown to their target audience in the West; mainly Europe.
As mentioned earlier, Dior’s Poison’s concept is heavily influenced by Charles Allen Gilbert’s ambiguous “All is Vanity” illustration as pictured above. Gilbert’s idea was to portray beauty and faintly reveal an illusion of a grinning skull when viewed from a distance. It implies that one should not be overly concern of one’s own beauty because ultimately, when we die, we will all look the same. This image, dated around 1892 was only seen in the mass public until 1902 when it was published in a magazine. It has then appeared in many prints and has become one of the most famous optical illusions today. Dior saw the connection and decided to recreate the illusion to suit its product, Poison.
However the meaning changes over time and of course, through clever association. Dior knew what “All is Vanity” is all about. It only takes a word, “poison” to mislead the entire meaning of the image. In modern sense, the ad is suggesting that Dior’s Poison can “to kill a man with beauty” or "Killer beauty" so to speak. It dismisses the meaning behind Gilbert’s illustration and made an entire new meaning of it.
This text is influential in a sense that the focus point of the entire image is the implication of a skull thanks to clever juxtaposition As aforementioned in modern day connotations, it is also used to indicate fatality and danger, which bring us to the main point of the usage of the skull, because as humans, we will mentally relate it to elements associated with death and causes of it, one of it being poison. The impact this has on reality has two forks down this path. One being those familiar with Poison the perfume will somehow, eventually mentally connect the image to the product, thus achieving the main agenda of the poster. The other path has the viewer connecting the dots between the image and the words which are "Dior" and "POISON", thus, having to relate these two components to get the bigger picture and the message. Humanity wise, we have come to associate the imagery of death with terms such as "drop dead gorgeous" or "killer looks", or "killer attention", all this being a great exaggeration of the literal term itself.
As humans, we try to relate it to what we already know in our minds or have been brought up to acknowledge. Those values instilled in us have made us associate skull-like symbols with negativity. A more conservative person with staunch, rigid upbringing would steer clear of anything to do with this poster, but seeing the target audience, it turns out to be a twisted sort of perception that places value in said symbol putting it on the pedestal of the thrilling sort of danger, for the adventurous, danger-inviting woman.
Unfortunately, that is the reality of today’s modern mind. It constructs one of the seven deadly sins, vanity, which at one point of history was a dark spot and looked down upon, even punishable by certain traditionalist societies today. But for the longest time, hedonism has been a prominent component of various cultures around the world. Women as well as men live for the vanity of life, valuing materialism over morality and will go to lengths to achieve it despite the consequences, in this case, possible death. Indirectly, hedonism is still a common practice although in more subtle manners without the actual need for brothels and the like. The Amish would have seen this as a great sin which would call for immeasurable punishment.
In this piece i covered the effects it has on our values and I feel that we nowadays compromise our traditional pious values in favour of materialism and a pleasure seeking lifestyle, instead of humble, charitable beginnings and endings that were so drilled into us in moral classes in school. At this point, even death is perceived as a "cool" and acceptable. It is damaging to our morale but this is how the flow of growth and advancement goes.
ReplyDeleteAnnna
I like the idea of how the designer incorporate the famous illustration All Is Vanity into the ad for selling Dior's perfume Poison. The skull and the name of the perfume, Poison works well because our culture views skull as something dangerous or signifies death. When it is put into the ad, the meaning changes to become that the perfume gives a deadly attraction to women who wears it.
ReplyDeleteIn this piece, I mentioned the similarities between the illustration of Charles A. Gilbert and Dior's ad direction. It captures the idea Gilbert portrays and instead associates it with Dior's product which suits their advertisement art direction.
ReplyDeleteIn this piece, I commented on the alternate readings that one would be able to get form this ad and to what extand has this ad have been shown to audience around the world and how do they differ.
ReplyDeleteThe skull really works well as in most of the culture, skull signifies death and poison. It recalls the sense of danger well, implying that beauty can be dangerous and deathly.
ReplyDelete