This isn't the ad I brought to class, but I've just came across this ad in a magazine. It is an ad for a Marc Jacobs perfume called "OH, LOLA!" The ad covers the whole back page of a Glamour magazine. It features Dakota Fanning in a nude dress fanned out around her with white polka dots. She is sitting back with a huge bottle of the OH, LOLA! Perfume in between her crotch. You can see that it's really in there because of the creases in her dress. At the top of the ad it reads "The New Fragrance for Women." So I decode this as: buy the perfume, it is the new way to make you and your vagina smell good and men will perform oral sex on you just to smell the perfume. My apologies, this is a little vivid but it is how I am reading this message.
One way to analyze this ad is through it's correlation. In the ad, all the colors are of the same shade. The background is a soft pink, Dakota Fanning's dress is very soft pink to nude colored, and the big bottle of perfume itself is a light passion fruit pink, which is bolder than the rest of the colors. And I must also mention the bottle of perfume is very appealing and pretty. The colors all relate to the bottle of perfume. Also, if we could connect the product to a body part, it would obviously be to the woman's vagina just because the bottle is placed right in between the thighs. That sends off a very sexual message linked to the perfume. The soft pink colors make the message very subtle and passive. The look on Dakota Fanning's face is kind of like "Look what I have in between my thighs, new perfume to make my vagina smell good. Get some."
Also, in relation to the video, "Killing Us Softly," the speaker talked about different ways women are portrayed in many ads. In the OH, LOLA! Ad, Dakota Fanning appears to be "experience but virginal" for obvious reasons with the perfume in her vagina. The colors give off a very girly, young and innocent vibe that will eventually blossom with the new perfume. Even with the name, "OH, LOLA" refers sexualizing a young girl. Usually, when I see anything with the word "OH" it usually gives off a signal of someone having a double take. It's like a guy giving a girl a second look, but this time it's like "OH.. You're a little grown and sexy now." Dakota has a very white and pure face with no makeup, small boobs and a short dress, which makes her look young, innocent and "fuckable." In addition, whenever I hear of Dakota Fanning, I just think of her while she was a young child actress in many popular movies which is weird to see her all sexualized.
This ad is quite sexual at first glance; you can see she is very intimate with the bottle of perfume. Then you realize, "OH" look at all the tricks this ad is trying to play with you. However, it won't trick me into buying a $50 perfume at Bloomingdales.
You have some good points about the ad trying to sexualize Dakota but I read it in a slightly more innocent way. On the ad it says it's a "New Fragrance For Women", obviously Dakota is pretty young and in the process of becoming a woman so maybe the ad was trying to target young girls who are in that stage between girl and woman. The flower is a very female symbol. The fact that the bottle is in between her legs could be a symbol of her being deflowered and becoming a woman. Since it's placed in the center of the ad surrounded by unsaturated colors it is also a good spot for the bottle to really stand out and gain the attention of the person looking at it. I'm sure this ad is sexualized a little because, well sex does sell. But I do not think she is suggesting oral sex with the bottle of perfume. Sometimes designers place things in certain places of the page because they know your eye will naturally be drawn to it because of the position and the colors.