The Armani fashion house was founded in 1975 by Giorgio Armani. Born in Piacenza, 40 miles south of Milan, in 1934, Giorgio entered the fashion industry as a window dresser but soon established himself as a fashion designer. Over the years, the name Armani has grown to become a global brand synonymous with elegant simplicity and sophistication, an ethos that has continued to motivate and inspire Giorgio, and is apparent in everything from Armani clothing, jewellery, watches and cosmetics to Armani perfume and even home interiors.
Although Giorgio's first foray into perfumes was in 1981 with the release of Giorgio by Giorgio Beverly Hills, the first Armani branded perfume was released in 1982. Simply called Armani, this chypre perfume for women (now discontinued) was to be the first of many successful perfumes to be released under the signature Giorgio Armani label. This was followed in 1984 by the release of the first Armani fragrance for men called Armani Eau Pour Home.
The 1990's saw the release of Armani's first floral fragrances in the form of Gio and Acqua Di Gio both of which shared the same soft-edged square bottle designed to emulate the unstructured look of Giorgio's jackets. He then followed this up with Acqua Di Gio Pour Homme, a marine fragrance that was supposedly inspired by the isle of Pantelleria where Giorgio spent many of his vacations. Lets examine the use of Giorgio Armani Company's advertisements for a persuasive campaign. My reasoning is because the company is separated into several different divisions, while each tries to sell their product, the advertisements must maintain an overall company image. I have chosen Giorgio Armani Parfum (cologne), Armani Exchange (A|X), Emporio Armani(Dreamers), and Giorgio Armani Occhiali (glasses) to be the focus for the general image campaign of the Giorgio Armani Company.
Armani uses dark colors with rich lighting and contrasting themes to promote their products. Regardless of the product, Armani seeks to be known as an elite brand with the highest quality and best products for a demanding consumer. The symbols, language, colors and imagery used reinforces this concept of the products by cementing into the consumers mind, the image and brand recognition which the company is hoping will sell its products.
Cultural barriers need to be addressed considering that this company is Italian and most of the advertising, which is used, features "European" looking people and scenes. This works: American's, when it comes to fashion, look toward Europe for emerging trends and fashion. One important fact to note is that when the advertisement is directed towards men, like the parfum, and occhiali advertisement, the people featured are more masculine and rougher looking than the smoothened and more feminine models featured for general company advertisements (A|X and Dreamers).
For the advertisement "Dreamers" I would add a few different words of text to the advertisement in the lighter areas of the advertisement. The words "Envisage" and "Discovery" should be added to give the connotation or "private and emotional conception" (Langer ch.5), which can be experienced by the feelings that the words invoke. These two words in addition to the ad will give a little more power to the message which ask the reader to imagine the possibilities, discover the unknown, and dream for what you've always wanted. This is all tied together with the imagery of three models posing, each staring in separate directions using the strategy of ambiguity in the semantic dimension (p.128). "They [Armani] want each potential persuadee to fill in his or her own private meanings or connotations for the particular word or symbol.
