Hidden Arg
Samantha Selvaggio

So you wake up one morning and look in the mirror. Sixteen years old, a face full of breakouts and some shiny blue braces. You may not be every teenage girl’s dream come true, but is it your fault you’re going through an awkward stage? Normally this would be a crisis for any other teenage boy on any other morning, but for an avid Axe user such as yourself, this is no sweat. Because with one spray you just went from dud to stud… and then you wake up?

It’s unrealistic to trust that a product like Axe that claims it can change your lifestyle, but this didn’t stop the Axe Company from releasing a commercial with a cameo appearance by Nick Lachey. This particular commercial advertises one of Axe’s body spray’s, ‘Clix,’ and conveys to the male population that regardless of your appearance, if you use these products, women will be drawn to you.

Heartthrob Nick Lachey strutted around town, to the song “Gangster of Love,” with clicker in hand so he could keep track of how many women glanced his way and gave him the eye. He then compares his total with a young man working an elevator who winds up having more than Lachey. At the end of the commercial it shows the elevator man spraying himself with the ‘Clix’ body spray, stressing the very idea that even if you are the famous and good-looking Nick Lachey, if you use ‘Clix’ by Axe, your chances on the playing field can exceed even his.

Some young men may be hesitant to believe that they have succumbed to the “Axe promise,” but if you are a consumer of the product, something about it must have sold you. If this were not the case, then why own it? Millions of commercials are broadcasted everyday on thousands of channels and flooding the television screens of people worldwide. This is the sole purpose of the advertising business - to construct and create commercials in such a way that they lure and persuade viewers to believe they actually “need” the marketed products.  The Axe Company has done more than just obtained this goal, but questions of whether this product really works and whether the commercials are selling fact or fiction, still remain.

The growing popularity of the Axe products has sky rocketed as a result of the vast increase of its users, nevertheless people seem to forget that it has also stripped the younger generation of men of their uniqueness and ability to basically decide how they want to smell. What guy wouldn’t be an advocate for a product that promises to give him the edge in the mating game, especially when women have responded exactly how the makers of Axe had anticipated? Whether women intend to or not, they are receptive to men who give off some form of the Axe brand scent. It has been proven to catch the attention of women and often times be quite compelling.

It is no secret that the media’s favorite weapon is sex. Sex sells and plays an enormous role in the advertisement and success of the Axe line and the producers expediently play right into it. It seems that today all that surrounds us is sex and promiscuity; but hey, would you trade the big bucks in for righteousness?

I didn’t think so.

Advertisers and marketers use this tool to their advantage because it works time and time again.

In the article, “Children’s Perceptions of Aggressive and Gender Specific Content in Toy Commercials,” Lori Klinger touches upon her belief that “all commercials were rated as demonstrating stereotypic sex-role behavior,” (Klinger). Much like the Axe commercials, where sex is being portrayed along with the assumption that men can just have women at the beck and call whenever they please, so long as they use the Axe products; it is supposed that young viewers are at best reinforced by stereotypic sex-role behavior, which is exactly the target market for the Axe companies; young boys who will believe that they are being marketed truth.

Commercials and ads that display these sexual innuendos depict an animalistic view such as numerous females prowling after a single “Axe-ified” male. In any event, these advertisements are both appealing and enticing and it is no secret that consumers are responding accordingly. When you combine members of the opposite sex with a dash of fantasy or some guilty pleasure, you can rest assured that people will watch and wonder, “maybe I should try that…”

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