Axe Stereotypes

Old Spice is very blatant in the way they attract their customers. An obvious example is The Man Your Man Could Smell Like commercial. In this advertisement Old Spice envisions their audience to be anyone who is in a relationship or trying to be in relationship. The more obvious targeted audience is the female audience. To attract the female audience they put an attractive man in the commercials and try to make it seem that if their “man” uses old spice body washes their “man” will be like him.

Inside the ad provides two people, a man and a woman, both of them are clearly undressed. In between shows the product the ad is trying to sell, axe body wash. The man is applying the product to him taking a shower. The woman on the other hand is not. Instead, the woman is applying whip cream to her chest, and she’s doing it for a reason.

Sex sells. We’ve all heard this before, so it’s nothing new, but a good advertiser is always aware that sex can also offend – so you have to tread a very fine line. The ad we are deconstructing, a print ad for Covergirl cosmetics, walks that line very well and is setting them up to reap the benefits of another well-planned advertising campaign. Covergirl is a heavyweight in the world of cosmetics that has been used for decades by women and girls alike, and as such they are very skilled at appealing to everyone within that very wide demographic.

Magazine advertising share a common message theme: SEX SELLS. Advertising uses sexual content such as sexual or erotic images, and words or phases to attract the attention of the consumer who then notice the product. This form of advertising has been used for centuries dating back to the 1800s. The famous tobacco company W. Dukes & Sons Tobacco, used a strategy to sell tobacco in 1885, by inserting trading cards of sexually provocative actresses into their tobacco packages 3 ( see image #1 4). W. Dukes & Sons became the leading tobacco companies by 1890. How about this slogan “To make your skin flawless” from Woodbury’s Facial Soap company. The soap company was near its end in the early 1900s. To boost their sales, they changed their advertising. They had previously used images of a doctor’s face on their soap wrappers and advertising. Instead, they incorporated images of romantic couples showing attractive, young beautiful women along with slogans as “A Skin You Love to Touch” 5 to increase their sales. This strategy was very effective. The advertisement contained a couple; a young beautiful woman looking straight ahead and a handsome man looking at her. The male model is holding her right hand with his left arm is wrapped around her, holding her close to him. This gives the viewer the idea that the two models are a couple. The slogan in the

The sexualisation of women in advertising has become a very prominent and controversial issue in today’s society. Many brands, products and campaigns we are presented with portray women as being available and willing sexual objects, who exist to cater to the male gender. Gucci is one such brand that does this, focusing on emphasizing the sexual appeal of the female gender in order to sell their products, because as advertisers know: ‘sex sells.’ This new cultural shift can however, be seen as politically regressive for women, as the ideology it brings negatively impacts how women are viewed by society and how they view themselves.

If it wasn’t apparent the ad was targeted towards men, it becomes clear at this moment. The women cease to seem human and transform into object that seem to be putting on a show. The ad has quickly veered away from any relevance to the beer itself an instead uses the objectification of women to sell the ad. Sitting at a pool in impossibly revealing outfits the women argue over the calorie count and how non filling the beer is, because there’s no such thing as too skinny right? Even these models are still counting calories as if to make a statement that all women should be. This kind of objectification and unattainable image of women is damaging to the self esteem of normal woman and heightens the expectation of men. Not many real women wear low cut shirts and have the perfect body and beautiful underwear, it unrealistic and causes women to feel inadequate. This feeling acts itself as an oppressing force to women, causing them to never fell good enough or confident with themselves. Not only that but this paints the picture that these two women in the pool only exist for men’s

Gender role bias in advertisements has been so prevalent for so long that the untrained eye wouldn't even discern it. All the same, these biases, for the most part, put women in subordinate positions and men in dominant ones. This assumption on both the genders is unfair and demeaning. These ads portray women as subservient and play toys for men. Not only do the models depict an image nowhere near close to reality, but their bodies are scantily clad and what few clothes they are wearing are very revealing.

Everyone has heard the phrase “sex sells.” It seems to be a major factor that drives people to buy. Advertisers manipulate this behavior by creating ads that showcase their products as a way to gain love, beauty, and desirability. Advertisers frequently use sex appeal with flirtatious images as an attention grabbing device to play with the public’s emotions. Because the public is a diverse group of individuals, it is difficult to target the masses by focusing on hobbies, sports, or flaws. Because of this, advertisers target sexuality, something everyone can relate to. In the February, 2016 issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine, they overtly demonstrate this. In an ad for Kinky Vodka, they represent multiple sexual innuendoes such as provocative body posing, stereotypical feminine colors, and seductive wording.

In conclusion, the ads overall message is that if you are a well dressed man with alcohol, all you have to do is stand over the most attractive of women and she will be instantly attracted. This message clearly shows the stereotype of women being dominated by men while being seduced at the same time, which is a common stereotype that has been used

In advertising, fallacies are often present. These fallacies are usually not obvious and are used to connect to a certain demographic. The ads of Axe hair and body products are notoriously sexist and assert their products only for a certain kind of man. The ads target, for example, men with lower self esteem implying using Axe in their hair and body will make them more attractive to women. In this particular ad, many fallacies lay underneath the surface. The fallacy most notable in this photo is a false dilemma. It is distinctly

On the notion of Masculinity in The Man Your Man Could Smell Like Old Spice’s 2010 Commercial The Man Your Man Could Smell Like paints a truly unique image of masculinity. On the one hand, the ad’s uninterrupted shot and the actor’s nonchalant demeanor and wit leave us in awe. On the other hand, though, it also begs its viewers to sit back and reflect: “Wait…what did I just see?” The ad markets Old Spice deodorants to female as well as male audiences by directly associating them with the idea of hyper masculinity, insinuating that men who use Old Spice deodorants possess the capability to accomplish virtually anything.

On the other hand, girls grow up desiring to attend to a man’s wants, look submissive, and be dependent. Kilbourne seeks to end the normalization of toxic gender roles by raising awareness of sex in these advertisements that encourage it. She takes into account the mental and physical traumas that women deal with on a daily basis whereas men don’t give a second thought about being injured. Although men are becoming the latest victims of these exploiting adverts, women are still more likely to get hurt, whereas men feel uncomfortable.

Jumping to conclusions based off of too few example stereotypes is called hasty generalization. Jumping to conclusions is exactly what Axe products do. The audience of Axe products are men. Everyone knows that the audience of Axe products are men because, on the back of any Axe product, there are two pictures showing that if men want to get women, then they have to wear Axe. The two pictures on the back show, one a man using Axe and then the other picture is showing a woman standing right next to the man giving the man attention. The man now gets attention because that is result of using Axe products. Axe is basically saying if men do not wear Axe, then they will not get the women. Also, on the back of the products, there are even little saying

Advertising is an important form of communication between products and customers. How to get viewers’ attention is first thing need to consider for advertising. Sexual appeal is become very useful tool in advertising, and it use is increasing. The sex appeal has a very long history, the first sex appeal advertising was introduced in 1911 by Woodbury’s Facial Soap (Campaign,2014). Once this advertising is released it has caused an enormous controversy, it is considered so risqué and inappropriate by several readers, even their cancelled their subscriptions to the magazine immediately (O’Barr,2011) . However, by today’s sexually liberated standards, this advertising already is positively chaste. During the next 93 years, sex is become a

Axe, has taken the youth of the nation by surprise, and more specifically the males. Axe is a brand of male grooming products that are marketed toward young males. So one would wonder what the problem with that is. Well, of course good hygiene and fresh scents are important to the youth of United State, but at what extent should one go to market that. Axe advertisements have gone so far to even promote the idea that there products help young males attract women. Axe body spray’s ad slogan “How Dirty Boys Get Clean”, truly has many people wondering what the meaning behind it is. Women in general are objectified and are at the expense of sexism in these ads. This theme was created by Bartle Bogle Hegarty, an advertisement marketer it