Saint Laurent - Black Opium: 1 perfume, 2 ads

In 2014, Edie Campbell is the face for Yves Saint Laurent's Black Opium ad. Four years later, Zoë Kravitz becomes the new ambassador for the perfume. What do consumers think about the ads and the evolution it undertook? We interviewed Khalil, a 24 years old consultant and Vy, a 23 years old studio animation student.

Black Opium - Edie Campbell

• First, when Khalil read Black Opium, he instantly thought about the opium drug which linked with ‘darkness’: the actor is wearing black clothes with a 'dark style'. The room and its equipments, the atmosphere and the fog in the city, everything reminds him of darkness. The lost girl is also looking for her drug which seems to be a man/perfume and she finds it quickly. The music is breathtaking just like the fragrance and it makes us live a quick immersive experience.
  

• For Vy, the Edie Campbell ad tells a story as well. For her, the good visual/luminous atmosphere links well with the lyrics. At the start, Eddie wants to find her guy but in the end, from what she understood, it’s just for the perfume. In the final scene she's even relieved to find it. ‘I can't believe this ad is from a long time ago but the visual is so modern that it could totally be used in 2022’ she said.

Black Opium 2 - Zoe Kravitz

• Khalil has the same thoughts as he reads the title like the previous ad. Yet, he doesn't clearly see this addiction / attraction to that drug he was waiting for. According to him, many people appear during this video, consequently he easily loses the attention and he hardly focuses. He explains that the music rhythm does not follow the video and he does not connect the many scenes one to another. The ad is quite long and he gets a bit bored. ‘The sequences and the atmosphere are more of a futuristic level and this could be an attractive point perhaps’ he finishes.

• Vy thinks it's a description of a person’s life who wears the Black Opium perfume. Like Khalil, she doesn’t think that the music is linked with what's going on but it's 'very actual’: the erotic subject is present as it is less taboo than before. The visuals are also just there to be topical, it takes place in Japan, at night with neon lights, diversity, there is a VR headset, a luxury sports car and then they end up in a nightclub. There is also a video game theme, she thinks that they are called by something, she imagines that they don't know each other at all but they end up joining to go to a club. From what she interprets, the message sent is that there is only one part of society able lead that life which is uppity because it carries that feeling. In the end they all have to cross a bridge to become part of the "elite", above everyone else while enjoying the view.

Which one would you pick?

• Khalil finds the second one more philosophical, it gives more importance to the product itself at the end (colours and lights on the perfume). Although it needs more time to understand - which people don't usually have, he likes it.

• Vy prefers the first Black Opium ad. Even if it’s for a perfume, the ad counts a story and it’s efficient: named Black Opium, she instantly gets the metaphor.

From these testimonies, we can understand that both ads are metaphoric. Carrying the same dark vibe, they recall emancipation, addiction and the forbidden. What seems to differ may be the upgrading from the first to the second ad, on which it is hard to get all the slight details and where a group of elite seems to be the only ones entitled to use the perfume. Overall, consumers have a similar and positive understanding of Black Opium’s identity.