TRANSCRIPT
ACTOR BRAD PITT IN CHANEL NO. 5 AD: "It's not a journey. Every journey ends but we go on. The world turns and we turn with it."
REPORTER: He's been hailed the sexiest man in the world, and actor Brad Pitt looks set to capture the attention of many more in Chanel No.5's latest campaign. Pitt is the first man to front the luxury brand's most famous women's perfume, a decision applauded by its creative director Karl Lagerfeld.
CHANEL CREATIVE DIRECTOR, KARL LAGERFELD: "I think it's the newest idea in the perfume industry and everybody uses Marilyn Monroe and all the stars that we've done and all that, so I think the newest idea Chanel could have was to take a man but for that you have to take the most famous and the most sexiest man in the world and that's Brad Pitt."
REPORTER: Chanel No. 5, with a mix of 80 ingredients, was introduced in 1921 and is one of the best selling perfumes in the world. Pitt's rumoured to have received 4 million pounds for the ad. Ciara Sutton, Reuters.
NOTE
There are two versions of the ad. One featuring just Brad Pitt, and another in which Pitt delivers the same speech but shares the screen with some beautiful women.
COMMENT
Chanel's ad has been greeted with derision by some media commentators. The Guardian called it "a load of unscannable nonsense that sounds like it'd been Google translated through 12 different languages and back into English again." Another writer described it as "sickeningly pretentious". Mind you, Chanel has form when it comes to pretentiousness. Just watch this vintage Catherine Deneuve ad. And, of course there are the inevitable spoofs: see here and here.
LESSON IDEA
Get your students to watch the complete ad and see if they can transcribe Brad Pitt's existential monologue/nonsensical drivel.
ARTICLES
• Brad Pitt's Chanel No 5 ad: the smell of disaster (The Guardian)
• Brad Pitt’s ‘Inevitable’ Chanel No. 5 Ad Is Also Nonsensical (TIME)
• Chanel No 5: The Smell Of Creative Disaster? (Marketing Week)
• Jessica Beresford: Chanel No.5 another notch in Brad Pitt's ad belt (TVNZ)
• Brad Pitt stars in awful Chanel campaign: Dumbest fragrance commercial ever? (Fox News)
• Brad Pitt debuts as new face of N° 5 (Chanel Press Release)
