The first
clip is the Axe billions commercial. In this commercial, a man is spraying
himself with Axe body spray. As he is spraying himself, millions of attractive
women all over the world are dressed in bikinis and are running toward his
location. The smell is “irresistible” to them and makes them act like hunting
animals. They run, or swim, through a variety of intense climates and terrain
until they reach the man on the beach. The women in this commercial are all
model women, dressed in revealing bathing suits. They are also portrayed almost
like man-thirsty beasts that clearly have an intense sexual desire. The camera
angles in the clip seem to draw attention to the women’s figures and mainly
their breasts. The depiction of women in the commercial is overall demeaning. Men
are shown as the dominant sex and they control female sexual desires. The
audience for this commercial is clearly young men. Axe wants to send the
message that if you wear Axe body spray, all women will find you uncontrollably
desirable. If you use Axe body spray, you will increase you sex appeal and gorgeous
women will want you. I believe this commercial was quite effective in reaching
its target audience. In middle school and high school, you could never go into
a guy’s locker room without being exposed to the overwhelming smell of Axe. Clearly
an effective way to gain hormonal teenage boys attention to a product is
through the use of sex appeal and model women. The other clip I found was a
student-made Axe commercial that reversed these gender roles. A woman is seen
running through a park. Later in the clip a group of men begin chasing her and
eventually tackling her, finding her irresistible. Once she is caught an Axe
for women bottle is shown. This commercial was very comical as it completely
reversed the gender roles. It was also quite disturbing to see grown men
tackling a woman to the ground as she is screaming. In this commercial, women
are the dominant sex as they control male sexual desires. Men are depicted as
mindless sexual robots.
Joe I agree with what you are saying here in all of the Axe commercials men are putting on their products and they are then surrounded by women as if the smell of Axe is able to attract them from miles around and I agree that they are targeting this specific commercial to boys in middle and high school because of the sexual appeal it has to them. The ad where they are revers is very comical but it did depict men in a way that made them look like "Mindless sexual robots" but I don't think it shows that the women are controlling the mens sexual desires because just like in the first commercial the men are all ver the woman like the women are all over the men and it goes both ways they are saying use this and women will be all over you, well the second one say use this men will be all over you. But you don't have to use it that is just the way they are marketing it to the younger audience and aiming it at the middle to high school students
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