As an avid television watcher, I am constantly bombarded with advertisements that sneakily splice themselves into the most inopportune moments during my chosen shows. For the most part, I do not pay much attention to them; they are just a fact of life (unless of course, you are fortunate to have TiVo). And for the most part, advertisements follow a certain formula in order to achieve their goal of selling a certain product to a targeted audience. They use a variety of audience appeals, one of which (sex and gender persuasion) can be seen in the viral phenomenon of the most recent slew of Old Spice ads.
Many advertisements employ sex appeal or portray heightened gender roles in order to simplify its relationship or relevance to their targeted audience. In other words, advertisers will assume or follow a stereotype of either women or men and use them in order to sell their products. When a female viewer watches a makeup commercial, the advertisers are targeting their insecurities that come with a female role—that they can only be attractive when they buy and use this particular brand of makeup. When a male viewer watches a beer commercial, the advertisers will also exploit insecurities and try to portray the beer as a choice of the most masculine men. They will target the heightened gender stereotypes because it encompasses the majority of their targeted audience. For the most part, advertisers are not gender-neutral and will not accommodate those who are considered “outside” of the normal gender sphere such as homosexual or transgendered people.
The highly popular and viralized Old Spice ad plays on such an advertising ploy. It depicts a very masculine man who states that “sadly [your man] is not [him]”. However, if, you the viewer, purchases Old Spice or if the male viewer starts using Old Spice body wash, he will reach a higher level of masculinity. With this, advertisers also employ the idea or sense of aspiration: males should aspire to be the best or most masculine as possible. The Old Spice man even states that “if he stopped using lady-scented body wash”, what a emasculating shame it would be to smell like a woman! “[…] and switched to Old Spice, [your man] could smell like he is [him]”; the male viewer will never be as masculine as the one depicted in the commercial but at least he could smell like him. He then further proves his masculinity by producing “two tickets to the thing you [the woman] love” which soon changes into “diamonds” implying that with Old Spice, he is able to be the perfect man who can woo any woman, specifically the female viewer. He then solidifies the message with, “anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady”. They use this so-called highly masculine character who is trying to sell this product geared towards men by gearing it towards women. It is more likely that women will buy this Old Spice product for their significant others rather than men buying it because of the commercial.
Perhaps the success of this ad campaign comes from its satire. It seems as though the advertisers at Old Spiceare aware of the whole gender ploy and are essentially mocking it by making it overtly gender-stereotypical. Whatever the implications there are within the commercials, the Old Spice advertisers should get a raise seeing how the ad’s YouTube video has garnered close to 23 million views, a variety of spoofs, and a whole lot of attention.
No comments:
Post a Comment