Batista da Silva Junior 1

Isaias Batista da Silva Junior

Prof. Beck, M. Catherine

English W131

Feb 22, 2014

The Use of Marketing Strategies and its Effectiveness in Magazine Advertisements

The today’s market is in constant development. Many different companies produce the

same type of product to different publics. The competition between these companies makes them

try to sell their products in a most attractive way. One of these ways is by focusing in a specific

audience at the time. As magazines have own approaches to their public, companies put their

advertisements in these magazines. Advertisers have used different strategies exhibiting similar

products to different publics, as the way that they show characters and assimilate them to a

specific audience, and the condition that they are put.

One advertisement that can be used as an example of these practices is the one for Bleu

De Chanel, a perfume for men, from the December 19, 2013-January 2, 2014 issue of Rolling

Stone is both sided. On the front page, a young man occupying about ninety percent of the ad is

shown sitting and looking to the right side, from where light comes, having as background the

blurred image of buildings at night, which look a downtown of a big city in US. He is wearing an

elegant outfit consisting of a black shirt and a dark gray suit, which matches with the ad’s

predominant dark color, and his hair is stripped and in a medium size. In the upper left corner,

right beside the man’s head, the name “Chanel” is shown in uppercase. In the lower right corner,

there is a bottle of Bleu De Chanel, which has a dark color and occupies less than ten percent of

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the ad. On the back page, a bottle of Bleu De Chanel is placed in a black background, occupying

about thirty percent of the ad, having a shiny blue contour. There is a tab in the left side, which

allows the reader to smell the fragrance. The name “Chanel” is shown again in uppercase, but in

the upper right corner. On the bottom of the page, two website addresses are shown: the first one

is Chanel.com, and the second one is Nordstrom.com.

Another perfume advertisement, for Calvin Klein Euphoria, which also is both sided, is

presented on the issue of Ladies’ Home Journal from December 2013-January 2014 and is

another example of the use of selling tactics. On the front page, there is man behind a woman,

placing his hand in her underbelly while she puts her right hand in his nape. Both man and

woman are with their eyes closed. They cover about three-quarters of the advertisement. He

smells the woman’s face and wear an unbuttoned dark long sleeve shirt, but its sleeves are folded

until his elbow. The woman’s hand that is not in the man’s nape is holding a long cloth tissue

that looks like a long purple dress, which spreads by the left side of the ad, giving to it the

predominant color tone that matches with the solid background. The text “Calvin Klein

Euphoria” appears in the center, and in the bottom there are two purple bottles of Euphoria: one

is the men’s fragrance and other is the women’s fragrance. On the back page, a black duffle bag

and a tote are shown in a white background. Each item has a respective bottle of Euphoria in its

front: the duffle bag is related to the men’s fragrance and the tote is related to the women’s

fragrance. A text below them calls the duffle bag and the tote “gifts”, which are free when any

large spray from Calvin Klein men’s or women’s fragrance collections are bought. There is a tab

on the left side divided into two parts with the smell of the fragrance: the top part says,

“Experience Euphoria,” and the bottom part says, “Experience Euphoria men.” On the bottom of

the page, the text “Calvin Klein Euphoria” appears again.

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The advertisements are shown in these specific magazines because what the audience of

each one values is well known by advertisers. The ad for Bleu De Chanel exhibited in Rolling

Stone magazine targets in young men (between 21 to 30 years old) who care about being

desirable. If one looks at the magazine’s articles, he or she will just see articles with topics as

“Year in Music”, “The Best of 2013”, and “50 Best Albums” due the fact of the issue chose was

printed in the end of the year. However, some advertisements can tell who the targeted public is.

It is possible find ads about ardent spirits, adventure cars, other masculine scents, cigarettes, gift

cards, and sunglasses in the magazine. Thus, the people to whom advertisers want to sell are men

who have adventure cars and use sunglasses care about being fashionable. Other detail is that

people who are under 21 years old cannot drink in most states of US, so they are not the mainly

public for this magazine.

The ad for Calvin Klein Euphoria exhibited in Ladies’ Home Journal magazine has as

target middle age married women (between 25 and 60 years old) who care about their beauty,

skin and facial care, and about their husbands, having thereabout. The articles from the magazine

have titles as “Can This Marriage Be Saved?”, “Christmas at the White House”, and “16 Women

Who Made the World Happier This Year”. Other advertisements also found in this magazine are

about color correcting cream, women’s jeans, dental care, cereals, slimming pills, and flu

medicines. From these items, is possible to say that women who already have got married and a

time after the marriage are having problems with it and women who care about decorate their

homes are the focused public.

Knowing their public, advertisers use rhetorical strategies to approach to them. One of

these strategies they use is Aristotelian appeals. Both the first and the second ad use the strategy

of pathos, which appeals to audience’s feelings. This use on the image for Bleu De Chanel would

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be effective for the target audience because the Rolling Stone’s audience is interested in how to

be more attractive. Considering it is night on the advertisement and the ad is for a men’s

fragrance, it suggests that the perfume should be used at night. The magazine focuses in a public

interested in drinks, which usually are drunk during the nights in bars or nightclubs. Putting all

these details together, the ad “says” to the readers that if they use Bleu De Chanel while to enjoy

their night, they might be more desirable because they have already an adventure car and using

Bleu De Chanel aggregates value to it. The ad for Calvin Klein Euphoria on Ladies’ Home

Journal uses pathos in a different way: due the fact that it is on a magazine having middle age

women that maybe are having problems in their marriages, giving a perfume as a gift could solve

some of these problems. The ad shows a couple in love, implying that if women use Calvin Klein

Euphoria, they will have the same with their husbands. On the back page, readers are lead to

think one more time about buying the fragrance, because it comes with a gift, which can be

chosen: a gift for themselves or a gift for their husbands. The use of Aristotelian appeals, once

what the audience values is known, becomes a successful way to go direct at the point that will

make people interested in the product.

Another strategy used in the ads is angle of vision. The ad for Bleu De Chanel uses angle

of vision in several ways. One of this ways is show the blurred image of buildings behind the

man at night. Buildings like those are not found in suburbs, but in downtown. Another way is

that the man is sitting and looking for somewhere from where the light comes. This use of angle

of vision gives the impression that he is waiting for someone to go to downtown to enjoy his

night, what would be effective for the target audience, because they value nightlife. In the ad for

Calvin Klein Euphoria, the angle of vision strategy is used to make the cloth tissue seems like a

dress. Because of their feet is not shown, it is not possible to say whether they are standing or

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lying, unless by the fact that the woman’s hair makes seem like they are lying, in other case,

there should be a fan blowing her hair. The use of the angle of vision makes readers see the

image and associate it to the situation without much effort, associating the situation to their

marriages.

In conclusion, there are many methods whereby people are lead to buy a product or an

idea. These methods go from how each detail is displaced, who or what is giving the sense of life

or movement to the ad, and what is omitted and what is exhibited in the ad and its purpose. After

look at the cover of a magazine, and analyze some articles and advertisements, it is possible to

determine who the targeted audience is. From this Writing Project, I could learn to analyze how

advertisements are directed for the people and why it is useful to sell the idea, and so I can see

how companies from which I am part of the focused public target me.

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Works Cited

Bleu De Chanel. Advertisement. Rolling Stone. 19 Dec. 2013: 22, 23. Print.

Calvin Klein Euphoria. Advertisement. Ladies’ Home Journal. Dec. 2013: 12. Print.

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Figure 1. Cover of Rolling Stone Figure 2. Front page of Bleu De Chanel ad

Figure 3. Back page of Bleu De Chanel ad

Figure 4. Cover of Ladies’ Home Journal Figure 5. Front page of Calvin Klein Euphoria ad

Figure 6. Back page of Calvin Klein Euphoria ad