Print Advert Analysis

This print is advertising the women's fragrance 'Hypnotic Poison' and is produced by Dior.

The image is of a glowing woman laying down, who has a snake wrapped around her neck.The woman seems almost like an audacious femme fatale as her pose is seductive as her lips are slightly parted, connoting a flirtatious expression also as she is addressing us directly with her eyes, we can almost say that she is trying to put the audience in a trance, due to her wearing the perfume. Perhaps wearing this perfume can cause you to mesmerise someone.
The femme fatale's face is not shot directly portrait yet rotated slightly, exposing more of her neck, which is another flirtatious sign conveyed within this poster. Her dress is tight, revealing her curves and also the shot is a medium shot, which suggests her provocative nature. Also the snake around her neck connotes poison and sin, the fact that the composition of this picture merges the snake and her dress, due to the colours being the same and also the patterns, suggests that she herself is poisonous, due to wearing this perfume.
The colour of the whole poster is almost an immense shade of purple, suggesting that she has supremacy. The colour purple signifies wealth and importance; she is completely immersed within the shade making her seem highly important; this highlights the fact that wearing this fragrance makes you powerful and passionate.

The background lighting is dark, making the woman appear mysterious, however the lighting on the woman is not low-key; this expresses her dominance as she is not afraid to be in the light. Perhaps wearing this perfume gives women control and to have the ability to be supreme.

The name of the perfume is centre-right, which is ideal as we look from left, starting at her face, then follow the formation of her body, ending at the text. The text is clear and easy to identify, the French tag line below reading, 'Dior est mon Poison' translating to 'Dior is my poison,' re-emphasises the entrancing nature of this poster. French is essentially 'the language of love,' provoking a very passionate poster, with an audacious atmosphere created by the model. The brand name is in the top-right corner, which is a symbol for the branding as their logo is conventionally in the top-right.

The subject matter of this poster is the perfume, which is in the left corner of the poster. Even though the woman takes up more of the poster in size, we can clearly identify the subject matter being the perfume as Dior is such a famous fragrance brand.

The target audience is women, although the woman appears provocative and shows sex appeal, this engages women as they want to be like her; having the audacity that she does and being as bold as she is on the poster.

The dominant reading of this poster is that wearing this perfume can potentially provide the targeted demographic with a sense of supremacy and we can infer this through the semiotics displayed; such as her facial expression revealing quite a powerful and strong woman, having the ability to hypnotise anyone. On the other hand, the oppositional reading is that this woman is too strong and as we are in a society that dominantly follows the idea of patriarchy, this completely conflicts that and therefore could be seen in a negative way. Also, although this woman is not revealing a lot, she is still provocative within her facial expression and body language, therefore this opposes the idea of feminism too as she believes she is overpowering and manipulating men through her and of course the perfume.