Sex sells....as long as it's a heteronormative, woman-objectifying, unhealthy version of sex.

This is an ad you would likely see just about anywhere. Shop windows, department stores, billboards, TV, the internet, malls. It's typical enough that your eyes probably wouldn't even linger on it as you passed. Advertising like this blends into the white noise of the scenery and is rarely consciously analyzed. However, the utter normalization of imagery such as this in our society makes conscious and thoughtful analysis of it all the more necessary and important. The most effective advertising is that which we do not actively perceive as trying to sell us something. Likewise, advertisers themselves may not always be consciously aware of every message they are sending. Advertising performs a singular function, which is to sell; how things are sold is dependent on the society to which they are being sold. Like all media, ads both shape and are shaped by the cultural climate in which they are created. To understand this ad and all advertising, we must deliberately dissect as many aspects of the imagery as possible.
Notice the body language of the woman in the ad. Her spine is curved, head tilted back in a gesture of submission. She is scantily clad, and her face is contorted, teeth bared, in an expression that probably is meant to be ecstasy but can also easily be seen as pain. Her eyes are shut, and her face is visible only blurrily in the background, while the foreground and clear focus is on her body, which (unsurprisingly) displays no trace of fat and glistens with moisture. The depiction of her body is overtly and purely sexual, a perfect example of the oversexualization of women in the media. We’re focused (literally and figuratively) on her body and not her face because her body is what matters. Furthermore, her passive body language is exemplary of that which is seen to be attractive. Submissive and sexy are synonymous, where representations of women are concerned.
We can also unpack the words used in an ad. In this case, the relevant word is “addict,” the name of this fragrance. This word coupled with the image in the ad seems to imply that the woman pictured is an addict of some kind. In this way, the ad romanticizes the idea of addiction by coupling it with imagery of an ideal woman. Addiction to anything is unilaterally harmful, and renders individuals powerless to control and shape their own behavior and choices. By pairing the idea of addiction with an image of an ideal woman, the ad conflates beauty and powerlessness, female sexuality and submission, health with disease, and sexuality itself with a lack of control, agency, and power with regard to women. Once one is familiar with the oversaturation of images such as this one in our culture, it becomes easier to see how erroneous and problematic ideas about women and sexuality are furthered and tacitly accepted in society.

Johnson, Allan G. "Patriarchy, the System". Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5th Ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2009. 68-76.
"Women's Sexuality". Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5th Ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2009. 149-160.