She invited a group of elite friends to dine with her in an elegant restaurant in Grasse where she surprised and delighted her guests by spraying them with Chanel No. 5. The official launch place and date of Chanel No. 5 was in her boutique in the fifth month of the year, on the fifth day of the month: 5 May 1921. She infused the shop's dressing rooms with the scent, and she gave bottles to a select few of her high society friends. The success of Chanel No. 5 was immediate. Chanel's friend Misia Sert exclaimed: "It was like a winning lottery ticket." Parfums Chanel was the corporate entity established in 1924 to run the production, marketing, and distribution of the fragrance business. Chanel wanted to spread the sale of Chanel No. 5 from beyond her boutiques to the rest of the world. The first new market was New York City. The initial marketing was discreet and deliberately restricted. The first ad appeared in The New York Times on 16 December 1924. It was a small ad for Parfums Chanel announcing the Chanel line of fragrances available at Bonwit Teller, an upscale department store. In the ad, all the bottles were indistinguishable from each another, displaying all the Chanel perfumes available, Numbers 9, 11, 22, and the centerpiece of the line, No. 5. This was the extent of the advertising campaign in the 1920s and appeared only intermittently. In the US, the sale of Chanel No. 5 was promoted at perfume counters in high-end department stores. The Galeries Lafayette was the first retailer of the fragrance in Paris. In France itself, Chanel No. 5 was not advertised until the 1940s. The first solo advertisement for Chanel No. 5 ran in The New York Times on 10 June 1934. 1940s In the early 1940s, when other perfume makers were increasing brand exposure, Parfums Chanel took a contrary track and decreased advertising. In 1939 and 1940, Chanel ads had been prominent. By 1941, there was almost no Chanel print advertising. Fragrance sales flourished during World War II. Perfume sales in the United States from 1940 to 1945 increased tenfold; Chanel No. 5 prospered, even without advertising. During the war years the directors of Parfums Chanel came up with an innovative marketing idea. Expanding sales to the middle-class customer had been started in 1934 with the introduction of the pocket flaçon. The