Axe is a Unilever-owned cosmetic products brand, which has its identity for its sex appealing advertisements addressed to young men who want women to be chasing him. The 2012 campaign about the New Axe Anarchy for him + for her was done by Agency BBH from London and, in July, won the Gold Lion prize in Cannes Festival. Anarchy is the first product on Axe’s line which is available to women, and therefore, the audiences for this piece of advertisement are both men and women, mainly young and metro-sexual ones. The ad keeps the concept of sexuality of the old Axe commercials but adds the same sex appeal also to women.
This appeal is achieved by the setting of the picture, the man and woman models themselves with their accessories, the placement and style of language resources; and each one of them indicates values propagated by the advertisement. The layout of the advertisement is composed by text – including name of the product and slogan –, a picture of the products in the top right corner and the main picture, which fulfills the page, of a static man and woman, looking at each other’s eyes in a kind of sexual tension situation. They are in a petrol station and the meeting seems to be casual, not planned.
While the man was fixing up his old blue car with equipment that deal with fire the woman was filling up her car with gas; both appear to be shocked with each other because their machines are still working. Their equipment, together, can cause an accident because the fuel is combustible; this setting represents the explosive power of attraction caused by Axe. The aim of Axe, therefore, is to convince people that Anarchy is not only a deodorant, but it is a deodorant with an extremely irresistible fragrance that will unleash dangerous attraction.
What the cosmetics brand proposes is that men and women will become attractive as soon as they spray their deodorants – the world will become a chaos now that axe Anarchy exists for both sexes; chaos will happen because of the equilibrium between sexes, where the power of attraction, before only from male to female is multiplied by two, going the two possible ways round. The man in the picture dresses in a more simplistic, everyday worker style and owns an old car – that is probably why he is fixing it – while the lady dresses up in a short, skinny and sexy dress accompanied by high heels and has not a luxury, but a good car.
This disparity between men and women exhibits that the product is affordable by any social class and makes the consumers do not feel anymore rejected, because they can play and get along with different social groups when using axe. The advertisement ensures customers to feel good, feel more secure and attractive, look good and make them feel they can get girls or guys who are out of their league. The setting of the picture also focuses on the couple and does not rely on the background, which is an irrelevant metropolis. The use of bright colors also emphasizes the love, hormones explosion and sexy moment witnessed.
Apart from literal sexuality appeal, the advert has both models with white-skin and blonde hair; a defined, sexy body and they are tall compared to average people. We can induce, then, that the commercial supports the creation of a stereotypical body, with beauty standards that are not achievable for who was born black and brunette, for example. The language used, on the other hand, is simple and subjective; it depends on the reader’s interpretation of the image in order to be appellative or not. The imperative strapline “UNLEASH THE CHAOS” can be connoted as a sign to the reader to buy the product, independently if it is a man or a woman.
Although the two images of the actual product in the top right corner are small, the consumer can notice them quickly and identify himself with the Axe brand. It is also in a commercial insight that they show the public the new packages, to emphasize the availability of the product to women. Axe creates a good piece of advertisement in a humorous but intelligent way. They use an advertisement precept that what appeals to sexuality sells well and, consequently, albeit it seems difficult to delight two different audiences, they hit their targets, men and women. BBH London’s advertisement really deserved to win a Gold Lion in Cannes.
