Advertising +
Marketing

Chanel’s initial marketing strategy was to generate buzz around her new fragrance by hosting a promotional event. She invited a group of elite friends to dine with her in an elegant restaurant in Grasse where she surprised and delighted her guests by spraying them with Chanel No. 5. The official launch place and date of Chanel No. 5 was in her rue Cambon (fr) boutique in the fifth month of the year, on the fifth day of the month: 5 May 1921. She infused the shop’s dressing rooms with the scent, and she gave bottles to a select few of her high society friends. The success of Chanel No. 5 was immediate. Chanel’s friend Misia Sert exclaimed: “It was like a winning lottery ticket.”

“Parfums Chanel” was the corporate entity established in 1924 to run the production, marketing and distribution of the fragrance business. Chanel wanted to spread the sale of Chanel No. 5 from beyond her boutiques to the rest of the world. The first new market was New York City, the cultural and commercial center of America with the clientele for luxury goods. The inaugural marketing was discreet and deliberately restricted. The first ad appeared in The New York Times on 16 December 1924. It was a small print ad for “Parfums Chanel” announcing the Chanel line of fragrances now available at Bonwit Teller, an upscale department store. In the ad, all the bottles were indistinguishable from each another, displaying all the Chanel perfumes available, #9, #11, #22, and the centerpiece of the line, #5. This presentation of the product line was the extent of the advertising campaign in the 1920s and appeared only intermittently. In America, the sale of Chanel No. 5 was promoted from perfume counters at high-end department stores by enthusiastic sales staff. The strategy in Europe was no less restrained. The Galeries Lafayette, a notable department store, was the first retailer of the fragrance in Paris. In France itself, Chanel No. 5 was not advertised until the 1940s. The first real marketing blitz was planned for 1934–35. The first truly solo advertisement of Chanel No. 5, as the most important Chanel perfume, comparable to her legend as a couturiere, ran in The New York Times on 10 June 1934