TASK 01 - CRITICAL ANALYSIS - DIOR HOMME

Advertising endeavors to persuade us to by a product by showing us a lifestyle that it claims we can have by buying said product. This is, however, a lie yet we still believe it and still buy the product, as we believe it will – in this case, as in many –make us more appealing to the opposite sex. As Berger states ‘it proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, or our lives, by buying something more.’

The latest Dior Homme advert is no different. Presenting you with this image of a young & sophisticated, wealthy & sexy city man who has a wild and dangerous side – suggesting that you can and will become this if you wear Dior Homme.

Although it is not as conventional as a muscly oiled man in small swimming trunks, jumping into a bright blue sea, it does use the same techniques to persuade us.

We all aim to achieve more and advertisers play on this idea to better ourselves, both subliminally and obviously.

This advert’s, as with all adverts, ultimate aim is to get you to buy the product, although it does not sell the product it sells a lifestyle – a persona. The advert suggests that if you buy this product you will become the Dior Homme man. By selling an ideal and a lifestyle rather that just the product itself, it entices you more, making you want to buy into it. ‘If you are able to buy this product you will be lovable. If you cannot buy it, you will be less lovable’ – where as in Berger’s example it says you will be lovable, the Dior Homme advert says that if you buy Dior Homme you will be sexy, rebellious, wild and desirable.

As the Dior Homme man you would not only be sexy and desirable you would also be rugged, exciting, wild and free, all qualities shown within the advert. All of this is only possible if you have the money to buy the product, if you don’t have the money to buy the product then you cannot be the Dior Homme man and improve your life – ‘money is life’.

The product is also sold through celebrity endorsements adding another aspect to the lifestyle being sold. If it is worn//sold by a celebrity is instantly becomes more desirable as they often have a lifestyle that we aspire to have.

Although it shows that a new lifestyle is possible through the purchase, this lifestyle is never actually achievable. Although Robert Pattinson claims that this advert is much closer to the possible buyers than other fragrance adverts it really isn’t. The only people who have the ability to have such a life are rich, playboy rebels for whom money and time are no real constraints.

For the everyday man the Dior Homme advert sells an unachievable lifestyle that we aspire to have and it is through this aspiration that we buy into it. Although once we buy the product we temporarily fulfill our desires and become in our eyes more desirable it is a vicious cycle. This cycle will never end as as soon as you think you have become what you were aiming for another product will be released and advertised offering you more, ‘publicity speaks in the future tense and yet the achievement of this future is endlessly deferred.’