Chanel
News Articles -
The Anticipation
£18m buys two minutes of Nicole Kidman
No 5: The Film is big budget cinema advertising
By Jane Martinson, The Guardian
11 November 2004
With an Oscar-winning actress, star director, couture outfits designed by Karl Lagerfeld and a Debussy soundtrack, it could be the latest blockbuster film. And at an estimated cost of up to £18m, the new two-minute commercial for Chanel No 5 costs more than many full-length features.
The ad, which reunites Nicole Kidman and director Baz Luhrmann following their Moulin Rouge escapade, debuts in the UK tomorrow with Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason. Otherwise known as The World's Most Expensive Ad, No. 5: The Film has attracted as much hoo-ha as the chick-lit sequel.
By appearing first on the big screen - it debuts on British television on November 20 - the ad has also given the cinema advertising industry something to crow about.
Christine Costello, chief executive of Pearl & Dean, Britain's second-largest cinema advertising house, says that No 5: The Film underlines the buoyancy of the market. The vice-president of the Cinema Advertising Association predicts that this year will see 180m cinema admissions, the best for 32 years.
Sequels - Spiderman and Shrek as well as Bridget Jones - have driven this success, to the satisfaction of advertisers who like less risky follow-ups. Sales houses are already salivating over Bridget Jones, despite the poor reviews, because of a mixture of its target audience - relatively well-paid women aged between 20-44 - and its timing, the all-important run-up to Christmas.
With all the confidence of Marilyn Monroe wearing Chanel No 5, Ms Costello says: "Bridget Jones 2 will take more advertising money than any film since Star Wars in 1999."
The glare of such publicity, however, has failed to hide the dark shadows of an industry in a state of flux. Rob Arthur, a partner at independent consultant RAAM management, says corporate upheaval has made for "interesting times", adding: "The industry is in a state of transition."
At the heart of these predictions is a flurry of corporate activity in a sector dominated by the sales house duopoly of Pearl & Dean and Carlton Screen Advertising (CSA), which split the market roughly 40/60.
This summer, Terra Firma, the investment vehicle owned by private financier Guy Hands, bought Odeon and United Cinemas International, the UK's two leading cinema chains, for a reported £580m. The chains, which control about a third of UK box-office takings, are the largest clients of CSA, owned by broadcaster ITV. Together they contribute about 50% of CSA's revenues.
ITV, itself a result of the merger of Carlton and Granada, has already placed CSA on a list of non-core assets which may be up for sale. French group Thomson, which operates a joint venture with ITV on international cinema advertising, is understood to be interested.
However, any negotiations will be hampered by the fact that the company's 16-year contracts with Odeon and UCI must be renewed by 2008.
Both contracts are unusually long and unusually generous to the sales house. Industry insiders believe that CSA claims a commission rate on all ads shown on Odeon screens of close to 50%, about twice the usual commission rate.
Such calculations are behind speculation that Mr Hands will bring the sales operation in house or find another partner. Companies which specialise in outdoor advertising, such as Clear Channel or JC Decaux, are understood to be interested.
"Guy Hands holds all the cards now," said one analyst. "Whatever happens, it's trouble for ITV." Terra Firma has said little publicly about the negotiations, while ITV has simply reiterated that CSA is under review rather than under the hammer.
Pearl & Dean hopes it can benefit from any fallout from its only competitor. The company has increased its market share from 30% to 37% since being taken over by Scottish media group SMG in 1990.
However, analysts question the future for cinema advertisers owned by television companies, given the limited amount of joint selling involved. SMG says it is committed to the business .
On top of these corporate manoeuvres, there are underlying issues about the industry. Although admissions have grown rapidly over the past 10 years - boosted by the growth in multiplexes - increased audiences have not necessarily resulted in increased advertising revenues. Cinema still accounts for just 1.8% of all advertising spend in the UK.
Cinema advertising is expensive and seen too infrequently to match television, for example. However, its benefits include exclusivity (there are only a few ads shown in a typical 10-minute slot) and impact (nobody gets up to make tea in a cinema ad break), as well as the youthful profile of most cinema-goers.
Mr Arthur believes admissions will continue to grow at about 2-2.5% in the coming years. Funnily enough, Kidman's fabulous appearance is redolent of nothing so much as the post-war era Follies.
"In good times or recession," he says, "cinema is still a reasonably cheap form of escape."
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Coming Soon, Nicole Kidman to Chanel No. 5
By Vanessa Friedman, New York Times
10 November 2004
The rumours began days before the Chanel women's wear show last month in Paris. Press photographers would not be admitted unless they wore black suits and white shirts; Nicole Kidman, the "face" of the house's perfume, Chanel No 5, was coming; Karl Lagerfeld, the house's designer, had convinced a bevy of famous 1980s models to come out of retirement.
The rumours were all true, and when the black and white-clad photographers saw Ms Kidman, there was such a frenzy on the catwalk that the paparazzi started to tumble off the catwalk.
It was a frightening end to a slick show - and it was staged. The "crazed-photographer" stunt had been set up by Mr Lagerfeld to publicise the new ad campaign for Chanel No 5, which centres on a "commercial" - if you can call it that - directed by Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrmann, starring Ms Kidman, and lasting almost three minutes (if you include the credits). When it debuts on American TV screens on Thursday and the rest of the world over the next month, it may well change the direction of luxury goods advertising. It certainly shows the advertisers' recognition that it needs to change.
"It is clearly no longer enough to just have an attitude and show a picture; you have to attach an emotional story to that," says Carol Potter, a global business director of J. Walter Thompson. "That is a global trend but it is especially acute when it comes to luxury goods, because with luxury goods you are paying to feel special - you need that personal connection."
Carolyn Carter, president and chief executive of Grey Global Group, says: "Every target group is becoming more resistant to the traditional advertising methods, so brands have to look at different ways to move people. This is evidenced in the migration to other strategies like product placement in films, direct marketing and sponsorship."
Chanel is just the latest and most dramatic example of a trend toward alternative marketing that started with luxury's courting of the celebrity spokesperson.
Louis Vuitton has not only produced limited edition handbags in collaboration with painters ranging from Stephen Sprouse to Takashi Murakami, but has also recently donated an Olivier Debré stage curtain to the Hong Kong Opera, and next week unveils new Christmas windows in all 322 stores designed by the artist Ugo
Rondinone. MaxMara, the Italian fashion house, also recently announced its sponsorship of the MaxMara Art Prize for Women. Ms Carter says: "They are not selling the products, they are selling an image and an attitude attached to that image."
The new press ad campaign from Brioni, the luxury menswear label, does not feature a suit, or even a man, but instead features an architectural shot of a Falcon 900EX plane. Black and white and stylised, it is meant to convey the ephemeral "values" of
Brioni: power, technology, leadership, speed, travel, design elegance, says chief executive Umberto
Angeloni.
When Chanel artistic director Jacques Helleu first approached Mr Luhrmann about making the film, the director told him: "I have no real experience [of making an ad] but what I can make you is a . . . trailer for a movie that has never actually been made, that is not about No 5 but in which No 5 is the touchstone."
Marianne Etchebarne, international marketing director of Chanel fragrances, says: "This campaign launches at a time when the market is more and more promotionally
oriented.However, No 5 is the benchmark of the market, and this new campaign will be the strongest to date in terms of making all women dream about No 5."
The short "film" is a quick-cut version of a love story that tells a tale of the most famous woman in the world (Kidman), who flees a horde of paparazzi and jumps into a taxi where she meets a young writer (Brazilian star Rodrigo Santoro) so immersed in his own world that he does not know who she is. They share a lost weekend in his garret before she acknowledges her responsibilities and returns to the outside world.
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Kidman 'next Monroe'
News.com.au
9 November 2004
IF Baz Luhrmann has anything to do with it Nicole Kidman is the most famous woman in the world.
Luhrmann, who directed Kidman in the Oscar-nominated Moulin Rouge, likens her to Marilyn Monroe and French star Catherine Deneuve.
"She's the most appropriate next icon ... she's the ultimate modern woman, both sophisticated and yet free," he says in TV documentary Chanel No5 The Film, a 30-minute short about the making of reportedly the world's most expensive commercial.
Directed by Luhrmann, the commercial was shot at Fox Studios last December and involved 250 extras, stunts and $42 million worth of jewels, with Kidman wearing one-off couture outfits designed by Karl Lagerfeld exclusively for the campaign.
In the reportedly $14 million commercial, which resembles the tragic love story Moulin Rouge, Kidman is a famous star who escapes the paparazzi by jumping into a taxi.
Seated in the taxi is a humble artist (Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro) who has no idea who she is.
The two go back to his rooftop apartment where they spend "four or five perfect romantic days together".
But soon she must choose between selfish love and responsibility - confidently facing the paparazzi in a black Chanel couture dress with a diamond pendant dangling across her exposed back bearing the logo of the world famous perfume, gazing wistfully back at her lover.
The commercial will premiere on Sunday.
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Kidman earns a scent
Herald Sun
2 November 2004
NICOLE Kidman's latest performance won't win her any Oscars, but it did her bank balance a power of good.
She was paid $5 million for four days' work shooting a perfume commercial for Chanel No. 5.
The two-minute advertisement is based on her performance in Baz Luhrmann's film Moulin Rouge.
With Luhrmann again in charge, it features Kidman wearing $41 million worth of diamonds.
And with a budget of $60 million, it cost more than many Hollywood movies to make.
Karl Lagerfeld made Kidman's costumes, including a pink gown with a billowing train, ostrich feathers and a diamond necklace almost 1m long.
She is seen running from screaming fans and photographers into a taxi, where she finds a young writer – played by Love Actually actor Rodrigo Santoro – on the back seat.
They embrace on the roof of his apartment where the enormous double "C" of the Chanel logo is lit up.
But she decides not to quit her glamorous life and the man is left with the memory, according to the commercial, of "her kiss, her smile, her perfume".
The ad will debut in cinemas on November 12.
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Nicole clinches £6.5 million for 2-minute ad
Metro (Glasgow - local paper - no link, transcript only)
1 November 2004
It is Nicole Kidman as we've often seen her - canoodling in the arms of a lover. Only, this is not a movie, but a steamy scene from the latest Chenel advert. The 37-year-old actress has been paid £6.5 million to star in the two-minute flick advertising Chanel's No. 5 perfume. The advert is produced by Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrmann and has the Australian acress escaping from the paparazzi and into the arms of lover Rodrigo Santoro. The advert premieres in US cinemas this
week
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News
Video Footage
National Nine News
5 October 2004
Click the above link to access an Australian news video giving details about the
commercial. The video runs for 47 seconds and shows parts of the ad, including
Kidman running along the street in a gorgeous pink feathered gown, as well as
Kidman putting on diamonds behind the scenes. Please note - this link could
become inactive at any time. Please contact
me if you find that this link is no longer operational.
The news footage was accompanied by
the following article:
Nicole Kidman and director Baz Luhrmann have completed work on a new commercial for the French high fashion house Chanel.
It's the most expensive 60 second ad ever made.
The theme is close to home. Nicole plays the world's most famous woman on the run from the paparazzi.
She does the running, however, dressed in Karl Lagerfeld creations.
"There's this fantastic pink dress unfolds like cascading silk behind her and she rushed down and we wonder what's going to happen," says Baz Luhrmann.
Kidman is also draped in $40 million dollars worth of diamonds in the ad, which will be shown in US cinemas from the end of the month.
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Nic's sparkling link
Sydney Confidential, The Daily Telegraph
5 October 2004
THE pendant dangling down Nicole Kidman's bare back seems to encapsulate the extravagance of the much anticipated advertising campaign for Chanel No.5.
The show stopping piece, which Kidman wears in the final scene of the advertisement, contains an amazing 687 diamonds.
It's just one of the many items worth a cool $42 million in total worn by the film star in the two minute, $10 million production
With Kidman being paid a rumoured $12 million and Baz Luhrmann also receiving a hefty pay cheque for the three-day shoot, Chanel must be counting on selling a
lot of bottles of perfume at Christmas.
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Scent
cents
Guess which fragrance is the world's best-selling scent
Kansas.com
30 August 2004
If you said Chanel No. 5, you're right. And those
in power at Chanel want to keep it that way.
You may already know that Nicole Kidman has signed on to do ads for Chanel --
the fragrance, to be specific.
The word "ad" seems to be an understatement, considering the recently
produced two-minute television spot, which will also be shown in movie theaters
in some parts of the country.
Women's Wear Daily reported that Nicole Kidman starred, "Moulin Rouge"
director Baz Luhrmann directed and Karl Lagerfeld designed the couture gowns
Nicole wore in the ad. Now, that's a team.
After reading about the finished product, which took a crew of nearly 200 people
five days to shoot, I'm as anxious to see it as the latest movie. It won't be on
television in the United States until Nov. 11.
The Chanel spokesman isn't saying how much the ad cost but does say it was by
far the company's most expensive advertising effort.
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Nic's ad follows Baz's other prized creation
By Sophie Tedmanson, The Australian
26 August 2004
WHEN Baz Luhrmann was offered the plum role of directing a multi-million-dollar advertising campaign starring his good friend Nicole Kidman for fashion house Chanel, he had other things on his mind.
His opera production La Boheme was playing on Broadway, he was trying to get a $US150 million ($214 million) movie about Alexander the Great off the ground, and, worst of all, his wife, Oscar-winning production and costume designer Catherine Martin, had just suffered two miscarriages ("both on opening nights").
"Our work is to create," Luhrmann writes in next month's edition of US Vogue magazine of his feelings in January 2003.
"There's a blank page, then there's something - a movie, an opera. But one thing we want more than anything we can't make happen. The blank page remains blank."
Ten months later, Martin gave birth to the pair's daughter Lillian - just as Luhrmann, suffering from tropical bacteria, was preparing to begin shooting the Chanel ad in Sydney.
Luhrmann details the emotionally charged year in a behind-the-scenes diary of the 18 months he was involved in making the two-minute Chanel commercial, which he describes as a tragic, romantic "mini-movie", not unlike his Oscar-nominated film musical Moulin Rouge, which also starred Kidman.
The ad, reported to have cost $14 million, features Kidman as "the most famous woman in the world".
According to Luhrmann's diary, Kidman's character was "a composition of all the iconic women who had, or very well could have had, some relationship with Chanel, from Marilyn Monroe to Jacqueline Kennedy, Maria Callas, Catherine Deneuve, Princess Diana and, now, Nicole".
The ad features Kidman's character fleeing the paparazzi at a star-studded event and meeting a bohemian artist, played by Brazilian star Rodrigo Santoro.
The pair share a few romantic stolen days together and a passionate kiss before she returns to her life, leaving him to reminisce about "Her kiss, her smile, her perfume".
The commercial was released in the US earlier this month and a sneak preview was shown to Australian magazine editors last week (it is expected to be shown here later in the year).
It features $30 million worth of jewels and couture outfits custom-designed by Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld.
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Baz and Nic reunite
By Michael Bodey, The Daily Telegraph
26 August 2004
IT'S the reunion cinema lovers have been longing for - Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrmann and his favourite star Nicole Kidman back together on celluloid in a $10 million lavish production.
But their latest collaboration, filmed in Sydney in December, is just two minutes long.
These pictures from American Vogue give the first glimpse at the new ad for Chanel's No5 fragrance.
Luhrmann calls the ad "a two-minute trailer of an epic motion picture that has never been made".
The Vogue pictures only tell half the story of a shoot that involved 250 extras, stunts and $42 million worth of jewels.
Luhrmann initially rejected Chanel's proposal to conceive, direct and produce the ad campaign for the fragrance, while Kidman wouldn't commit to Chanel without Luhrmann involved.
Chanel persisted and the A-list duo relented.
Luhrmann's "director's diary", printed in the magazine, shows a creative talent pushed to the edge, personally and professionally.
Luhrmann admitted his wife, dual Oscar-winner Catherine Martin, had endured two miscarriages - "both on opening nights".
"The one thing we want more than anything we can't make happen," he wrote.
Luhrmann was al most unable to share the joy of his daughter's birth in October last year "due to a strange eye infection".
The doctors advised him against being present at the birth.
The ad campaign will debut on TV and in cinemas in October.
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Nic's
$5 million payday
Christine Sams, Sydney Morning Herald
6 January 2004
Nicole Kidman is thought to have received a huge £500,000-per-minute for her part in the forthcoming, four-minute-long Chanel No. 5 advertisement which was filmed in Sydney.
If the numbers are true, this is said to be the most lucrative deal in advertising history.
The actress, who plays a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Diana, Princess of Wales, was paid a total of £2 million (nearly $5 million) and was shot by her Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrmann at Fox Studios.
In one scene from the shoot, Kidman flees a phalanx of photographers on a set recreated from the red staircase scene from the movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. But instead of Marilyn Monroe's pink satin dress, Kidman appears clad in a black evening gown designed by Karl Lagerfield.
"It looks like she is being stalked by the paparazzi," an insider on the set said.
The other set recreated a Parisian apartment balcony with a giant Chanel billboard in the background. Kidman, clad in Chanel and a No. 5-emblazoned pendant, kisses her Brazilian co-star, Love Actually actor Rodrigo Santoro.
Two people were thrown off the Sydney set after being caught trying to take photographs of Kidman. Both were paid extras in the paparazzi scene, who were found to have substituted their prop cameras for real ones to try to get pictures of the actor.
There had been rumours about the alliance between Kidman and Chanel since July. They were given fuel when Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld, never one to give a compliment lightly, proclaimed Kidman to be "the best of the best".
The project had been postponed for six months as Luhrmann, whose first child with wife and creative partner Catherine Martin was born in October,
was busy preparing to open his production of La Boheme in Los Angeles this month January.
The ad is due to hit screens later this year.
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