The 20th century and rise of new technologies had a great impact on today’s forms of branding, advertising and communication strategies. Newly emerged media bears new qualities, and new characteristics such as digitalization, interactivity and openness. New media has introduced new ways of producing, receiving and consuming information. Marketers accordingly, have come up with a variety of innovative brand consumption strategies .Thus, micro movies have emerged. In this regard micro movies could represent a new approach in marketing that relies on entertainment content (along with interactivity) for the purpose of enhancing attitudes toward the brand.
According to statistics, the annual global perfume sales revenue exceeds $28.95 billion in 2014. The Global Industry Analysts Inc. released a report on the fragrance and perfume industry, predicting that it would be worth $45.6 billion by 2018.Also, numbers show that above 90% of women wear perfume in order to keep up with the latest fashion and beauty trends, or present themselves as trendsetters.
Perfume is like a reflection of a personality. It is associated with pursuit of pleasures love of freedom and other cultural values. In perfume mini movies which are the latest and the most successful trend in perfume industry, the positive connotations of the audiences are based on tactics of “sharing” the mythical meanings by the audiences. These derive from the positive connotations in our culture and prove to be automatic and unsurprising. By creating certain image and referring it to certain codes and signs to certain audiences the advertising proves to be highly persuasive.
The purpose of this qualitative empirical study is to explore the perceptions of perfume mini movies and lived experiences of middle-aged foreign residents in Taipei area to determine the degree of influence of perfume ads on their lives. Through the creative analysis it reveals how the audiences perceive one of the most desired and cherished myth of our lives – myth of love. The audience responses to the selected advertisements were analyzed by using the qualitative semiotic approach. The main quality criteria of objectivity, reliability and validity were maintained. The respondents were collected by snowball sampling and in-depth interviews were conducted in two sessions. The results show that consumer’s life themes and personal experiences and also the way they relate to the world are the keys to understanding linkage between advertising consumption and identity.
