The Gabrielle Chanel Project

Since the day I was accepted into the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media I have constantly heard, "You have to take a class with Dana McMahan if you are at all interested in advertising or fashion!" Ever since I have tried to enroll in her class every year, but wasn't until senior year that there was an open seat in Connect Carolina for MEJO 371 Creative Advertising. As soon as the class started we hit the ground running learning how to create creative story boards for the North Carolina Virtual Zoo to prepare us for what we had next in store with our client, Gabrielle Chanel perfume. She broke us up into teams and each team had to come up with a creative imaginary flower campaign for Gabrielle Chanel Perfume which we had to pitch to Chanel at the end of the semester.

My group named our flower, Puissant, stands for "Having great power or influence," which we thought represented the Gabrielle Chanel Perfume tagline, "The Essence of a Woman." Through having out flower's name, aesthetic, look and feel planned out, we started designing our imaginary flower and composing its origin story.

Our imaginary flower's origin story began it being created out of a sandstorm in the flower made out of a sandstorm in the middle of the African desert and is enclosed in a glass bottle to protect the flower. Puissant reminds us everyday that although delicate and made of sand, she grows during the worst times and stands in beauty in the best of times. Puissant is a divine scent that stands for all Gabrielle Chanel was and did through its beauty, elegance and rareness.

Our team created our imaginary flower using a mixture of AfterEffects, Photoshop and drawing by hand. I am so thrilled with the final product that my group produced. It would not have been possible without my incredibly talented teammates: Hannah Cousins, Reagan Dellinger, McKenna Claffey and Paloma Hansen. I absolutely loved this class with Dana McMahan and I have gained so many tools from her as a professor that I will implement in the advertising industry after graduation. I would strongly recommend taking this class at UNC-Chapel Hill, she is not only a great professor, but a great person in general to ask advice and resources from. If you want to check out more about the Gabrielle Chanel Project and Puissant it is linked here.