I believe the man chosen for the commercial is an attempt to appeal to the audience. The man is average height, dark haired, and has no extreme features. He is not clean shaven, and does not appear to care a lot about his physical appearance at the time. This suggests to me that Axe is trying to appeal to the ‘average Joe’ male audience. Perhaps this is because they feel like an average person’s desire for extremely attractive women is a strong enough desire to get them to buy axe. There is an obvious difference between the man in the commercial and all the women (besides the gender differences). While the man seems to be pretty average, the women all seem to be very physically appealing. So appealing, in fact, that that all of them in one place looks completely ridiculous. It only gets more ridiculous when you think of what they are all doing. It appears that there is nothing that could get between these overly attractive women and the lone, average looking man. The only thing that makes this man stick out from the crowd? He is spraying himself with axe. In fact, he is spraying himself as if he knew this would happen beforehand. His chin is up, his chest is out, and he is confidently waving his arms around him. Axe is telling every average Joe out there to not worry about your stature. Don’t worry about shaving, man, just stand up and spray yourself with some axe! The girls will come running.
I agree with rob. I also think that it is a good advertising ploy not to use a more attractive man because viewers could also take his attractiveness into consideration and think "well, he is just getting those women because of how attractive he is."
ReplyDeleteI also agree with rob. When men watch this advertisement the first thing they think is "dang those are sexy girls". The second thing that comes to there mind is "how am I, an average joe, supposed to get women like that". This is why I think having the average guy at the end helps alot because it gives the consumer reason to buy.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it was effective using an "average joe" in the advertisement. It shows women that this could be any guy, and it shows me that this could be them. The girls in the video are very attractive. They're slim and wearing bikinis which is seen as attractive by most men. If the company chose a tan, handsome, clean shaven man who was physically in shape, most men wouldn't favor the ad. They'd feel like he looked nothing like them and that they therefore couldn't be that person. There was nothing special about the man in the video that would set him apart from some guy walking down the street which is why the ad is favorable in that sense. It's showing that this could be you. You have every possibility to smell great and attract the attention of a beautiful girl.
ReplyDeleteI agree that advertisers used an average looking man to appeal to average men. In most advertisements for cologne or Gucci or Calvin Clein, they always fit, muscular men with there shirts off. I think Axe made an effective choice using and average looking man. If you (the average man) use axe, you can make the beautiful women come to you.
ReplyDeleteThe commercial definitely appeals to average men, but when looking at it from the female perspective, women would not want their man to get Axe after seeing this ad, unless she wants thousands of girls chasing him down. This fact is much different from, for example, the Old Spice ad we watched in class. A woman would want her man to get Old Spice, because he would become this rich, masculine, muscular man; but this Axe ad is quite the opposite, a girlfriend would not want her man to get a lot of women.
ReplyDeletei think the use of an average man places more emphasis on the product. average joe= plain jane. average joe + axe= tons of beautiful women.
ReplyDeleteThis commercial is much more effective because of its use of an "average man." Like you mentioned, this guy has done nothing to himself to make him attractive by looks. However, he stands there tall and proud spraying the Axe knowing why the women are chasing after him. The use of a tall, tan, and muscular man would not convince average people, there target audience, to buy the product.
ReplyDeleteAverage men help sell products to the average person. People get tired of seeing the handsome guy that all girls want. It would have made their commercial less effective if they would have used that type of man. Average guys know that not all situations that happen to "that" guy will happen to them so using someone that they can relate to, makes the product more appealing.
ReplyDeleteUsing an "Average Joe" for the commercial increases the consumer base of the product because it appeals to every guy rather rather than using say a rich or "ripped" guy. It makes every person identify with the product which makes it more effective
ReplyDeleteI think your post is very accurate in saying Axe wants to appeal to the average joe. When the average joe sees this commercial, they think Axe will help them out by using the product. I do however think that using an attractive person is affective as well, as some of you do not think. Having beautiful people in commercials gives consumers something to aspire to, and they buy the product hoping to do so.
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