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Doron Parks
Katrina Newsom
English 1020
7 March 2016
Advertisement
“Beware
of the Axe Effect. The Axe Effect may result in, but is not limited to,
unrelenting female attention and/or late nights.” This comment appears on all the bottles of AXE
cologne. It is put on there as a warning label giving off the message that if men wear this cologne
they will be lady magnets and will get a lot of attention and be the center of every party. In
addition to this message on the bottles the Axe cologne company is notorious for the T.V.
commercials. The majority their commercials include a man using there cologne and getting
noticed by women. So the company’s message is very clear, they want men to think that they can
be a ladies man if they use their product, it seems that this method of marketing is their main
method. In one specific commercial I found of the Axe cologne called “The Fitting room” there
is a young man walking around in a clothing store and there is also a young lady that appears to
be a worker of the store. As the man walks around the women smells the air and she notices a
sent, it’s the man’s sent. The man takes some clothes and goes into a fitting room. Once in the
fitting room the man begins to take off his clothes until he is in his underwear, obviously the
man’s smell is stronger because he has on less clothes so the women goes into the fitting room
and closes the door behind her and then the product appears and it says “The AXE Effect”. Once
again showing their slogan message, but in this commercial the man is not the good looking male
model, the man would be considered to be not that good looking to our cultures standards of
beauty he had tight “dorky” clothes, glasses, faces ackny and didn’t give off the impression that
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he was confident in himself. He would be considered a “nerd”. By putting this “nerd” in a
commercial the company is saying that even people that look like him can become lady magnets
if they use their cologne. The Axe Company is continuously giving off the same message. Is it
right for the Axe Company to give there costumers false hope, to continuously show and sale a
fantasy that not every man or person that buys the product can achieve?
When you look at an advertisement on the television and you want whatever they are
selling because you think the product looks nice or you think you can use it. The real question is
do you exactly know what the product is going to do for you and why you should buy it? No, the
advertisement (commercial) was made for you to want to want the item they’re selling. The
product could not work, it could not be worth anything, it is very likely that you could be wasting
you money on something that you very well don’t need. When people look at Axe commercials
they see nothing but a fantasy that is being played out and since the fantasy is being played out in
front of them and the costumer is being told that if they use a product the fantasy will come true.
In reality there is a very big chance that the fantasy will not come true and then the consumer is
has lost money this called false advertisement. False advertisement is misleading people by
promising that something will happen but don’t really have any proof that it will happen. Like
telling someone that a piece of cake will be the best piece they’ve ever had. There is no proof
that the piece of cake will be that great. The company can show someone enjoying the cake and
convince people that it is and they cake turn out to horrible.
In the ad that I am analyzing the creator is using rhetorical strategy of
Cause/Consequences. They are saying that if you use this product you will get this reward.
Showing people what they can achieve is a very good way to get people to buy things. People
like to feel good and to know that they are buying something that will make them feel good and
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give them something good. Even though it is a good strategy, it isn’t right. It it is basically
tricking people, giving them false hope, and in the end the person doesn’t feel good because they
just lost some money.
WORK CITED
"YouTube - Axe - The Fitting Room." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Web. 01 Feb. 2011.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHOj4oJqb3I>.
West, Doug. "The Center for Parent/Youth Understanding - Smells like Teen...body Spray." CPYU ||
The Center for Parent/Youth Understanding - Home. Web. 01 Feb. 2011.
<http://www.cpyu.org/Page_p.aspx?id=180544>.