Chanel lets its hair down, hoping to put a casual but chic face on a campaign for its new fragrance

How youthful and contemporary does Chanel Inc. want the image for Allure, its new women’s fragrance, to be? On a scale of one to five-CK One, that is to Chanel No. 5 – the goal seems be a two and a half.

The ghost of Coco Chanel, the founder and corporate icon would undoubtedly haunt any executive who dared to duplicate the sales pitches for CK One, because they are centered on a cadre of androgynous, multicultural, half-dressed young models. Why, some of them even display – mon Dieu! – tattoos and pierced body parts. 

Still, the success of CK One, which is marketed under the Calvin Klein name by the Elizabeth Arden division of Unilever, underscores the fact that No. 5, though still a best-seller after almost 75 years, appeals primarily to women in their 30’s and 40’s- or even older. So too do the far smaller, so-called niche brands like Coco and No. 19 that are sold by Chanel Inc., the United States unit of the French couture house Chanel.

So an extensive campaign for Allure with a budget estimated at more than $10 million – the most Chanel Inc. has ever spent in the initial year of marketing a fragrance–features seven fresh, frequently smiling faces in their 20’s that include the first black woman to appear in Chanel fragrance advertising. The models were posed by the fashion photographer Herb Ritts in casual yet chic styles representing archetypes that ranged from gamins to vamps.

Just as the trademark Chanel formality is missing from the print advertisements, scent strips, posters and other promotional materials for Allure, the brand comes in sleek bottles reminiscent of Calvin Klein fragrances. Allure offers a lighter, fresher version of a scent known in the parlance of the fragrance industry as an oriental, blending florals, citron and vanilla. That too is intended to attract the newer noses that favor CK One.

“Chanel has made enormous strides as not just something your mommy knew about,” Arie L. Kopelman, president and chief operating officer of Chanel Inc., said in a recent interview at the company’s office in midtown Manhattan. “And the business is growing.”

“But clearly there was a need to reach out to a younger group, a woman 25 to 30, to say, ‘Here’s what Chanel’s about today,’” he added. “So we wanted what is alluring, what is seductive and sexy, to her.”

Laurie Palma, the vice president for fragrance marketing at Chanel Inc., said: “If No. 5 were launched in 1966, this is what it would be. It had to be a new classic but a modern classic, not just a 3-, 5- or 10-year success but to endure into the next century.”

“We see Allure as reaching No. 5,” she added, “if not in the first year then the second year for sure.”

Mr. Kopelman agreed, saying: “This brand is being positioned as very broad. We are going for serious volume.”

Though Chanel Inc. does not disclose sales: figures, executives say No. 5 is the company’s top-selling brand in the United States, as it is for Chanel around the world. Women’s Wear Daily, the trade newspaper, estimated the annual American wholesale volume of No. 5 at $50 million.

To create Allure, Chanel spent three years asking 9,000 women about everything from the name, which Mr. Kopelman said suggested “not purely physical beauty,” to the scent, which Ms. Palma said was to “smell clean and fresh and be longlasting, but not give up sexiness.”

The campaign was a collaboration between the in-house creative team at Chanel Inc., led by Lyle Saunders, vice president for creative services, and Peter Arnell, chairman and executive creative director at the Arnell Group in New York. Mr. Arnell has also worked on previous Chanel campaigns like the eye-catching commercial for No. 5 that morphed footage of Marilyn Monroe with the model Carole Bouquet.

Allure will be priced the same as No. 5; for instance, a 1.7-ounce eau de toilette spray bottle will cost $47.50. The brand is scheduled to go on sale next month in about 700 stores of chains like Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue, then expand by the end of the year to an additional 1,000 stores. And for the first time, Chanel Inc. will take orders through a toll-free telephone number.

One interesting sidelight to the Allure introduction is the fact that the fragrance will share its name with the monthly beauty magazine started in 1991 by the Condé Nast unit of Advance Publications.

“I said to Si, I think we’re going to elevate the name to new levels,” Mr. Kopelman said, laughing, “and do wonders for his magazine.” The reference was to S. I. Newhouse Jr., the chairman of Condé Nast and an owner of Advance. 

“What can you do?” Linda Wells, the editor in chief of Allure in New York, asked. “These cosmetics companies own just about every name in the English language and probably the French language as well.” 

“We’re lucky though, because with Chanel we know it will be a quality product with staying power,” she added. “So in that sense it can’t hurt us.”

And yes, Allure is among the more than a dozen magazines in which Allure will be advertised.