What the Hail?

There was a series of advertisements launched by Axe a couple years ago. I focused on the idea that if you spray Axe on your body that you will inevitably just be forcing woman off your body. They set up the commercial as if it was some scientific trial to study Axe, and in the end the participant disappears and is presumably pleasured by the mass of woman. This add is marketed towards a young male audience who are heterosexual and desire a traditional “attractive” female.

Axe targets a very specific audience in its approach to selling its product. It assumes that all males watching the add will desire the same idea of what makes a woman, and also that because they think about a woman in a sexual way will desire these woman to be attracted to them, which is aided by the use of their product. “The audience is also positioned within the discourse of sexuality and is assumed to be not just male, but also heterosexual” (media and society p 185). Though this quote is related to another add, it is effectively the same ideology present in the axe advertisement, in that it calls out to a specific audience and forces all those who do not fit into that group to think in terms of that group during the add.

If I was to say whether or not this add is effective in attracting myself to the add itself, I would say no. It present too narrow a view on sexuality and what is desirable.  The hailing of the audience as teenage heterosexual males.It assumes that all heterosexual males will view these woman as attractive and will try to garner their attention by using Axe. This presentation causes young teenage males to internalise the idea that they should think and act in this way, which causes males to buy their product. It attempts to present their product as a sure fire way to get what every man should want, and in doing so becomes ineffective as an advertisement due to their attempts at showing what is desirable. Though I know many people would disagree and say the add was effective, however it did not properly reflect my values, beliefs, or norms in order to gain my interest in their product.

This raises the question about what is the societies view on being a male and what it means to be a male. Media and society points out the idea of subjectivity as “draws attention to our autonomy and to the fact that our actions are predetermined or subject to influences beyond our conscious control” (Fiske 1987, pp 48-61, media and society p190). So in presenting this singular way of looking at sexuality and at people, it can be argued that people are being taught that this is how we should act.