Advertising Analysis & Mock Ad

Advertising Analysis

For my advertising analysis, I have analyzed the following commercial for Axe "Dark Temptation" Body Spray:

Intended Audience: Women

Value Assumptions: Women love chocolate and if men remind them of chocolate they will enjoy them in a similarly sensual manner. This assumes that all women like chocolate and that women like men to smell like food.

What is it trying to sell?: This ad is explicitly selling body spray, but implicitly selling sex.

Is it effective?:
I find this ad to be the equivalent of wearing black face. It is not effective because it is extremely offensive. In response to this advertisement I wrote a letter to Axe. I have included the letter and the response from the company below:
__________________________________________________________________
Axe,
This (DarkTemptation/Chocolate Man) advertising campaign is among the most offensive, racist I have ever seen. It is extremely derogatory towards black men, and other men of color, in that it reduces them to the status of food that can fulfill a craving or temptation. It also could be considered modern day blackface in that the beginning of the commercial a white man sprays on "Dark Temptation" and becomes, essentially, brown. I am now an ex-customer because I am so disappointed in your ability to avoid a clearly racist and bigoted advertisement merely to sell a product.
Please consider this in future advertisements and perhaps I will begin buying your products again.

Sarah Rose
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Hi Sarah,

Thank you for taking the time to contact us about our advertising policy and practices. As one of the country's largest advertisers, we take seriously our responsibility to meet our consumers' needs while maintaining the highest standards of ethics in our business practices.

We would like to emphasize that the ad was intended to be nothing more than a nod to women's timeless love of chocolate. The idea behind the campaign is that the product will make AXE users as irresistible and tempting to women as chocolate itself.

When it comes to brand communications, we work hard to match our messages with the right audiences and mediums, using extensive insights from consumers.

Based on our research, we know that a wide range of people find the campaign amusing and appropriate. In addition to this, we carefully chose the programming during which AXE advertising appears and only selected those shows that viewers 18 and older are most likely to be watching.

Your feedback is a valuable part of the market research we conduct routinely about consumers' attitudes and preferences. You can be assured that your comments are appreciated and will be seriously considered.

Chris Green
Axe Consumer Services
SCÄ
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This response from Axe proves that the advertisement has been effective for many audiences in the way that it ties sex and food and "empowers women." The fact that this advertisement plays off the ignorance of many consumers is very upsetting and offensive to me.
__________________________________________________________________

Spoof Advertisement

PURPOSE: This public-service announcement style ad mirrors other similar ads by GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network) in an attempt to demonstrate how hurtful the phrase "That's so gay" can be. Wanda Sykes has joined forces with GLSEN to promote this idea of "Think before you speak." I am not mocking the ads--in fact I find them to be quite humorous and candid--I am instead using the ad as a means of mocking the two teachers in the Anoka-Hennepin school district who were penalized after mocking a student they believed to be gay. I find it ironic that the people who are supposed to be responsible for creating a safe, welcoming environment for all were actually responsible for harassing a student.

I created this ad as a reminder to students and teachers about how harmful stereotypical and discriminatory remarks can be.

Here is an example of one of the PSA's produced by GLSEN in conjunction with Wanda Sykes:



And a print ad example:

Teaching Advertising

One activity I would employ for teaching students about advertising would be to watch a number of TV commercials as class without showing the product name. There are multiple commercials that don’t identify their product until the very end of the ad (like the new BlackBerry ad below).

I would ask the students to identify what the ad (or ads) is both explicitly and implicitly selling. They would then get into pairs and think of as many commercials as they can that are particularly memorable. Then they would share with the class and we would discuss why these commercials are particularly memorable: are they funny? Annoying? Cute? Dorky? Clever? This would lead into an assignment where the students would work in groups of 3-4 to create a short commercial for a new product using the elements that make a commercial memorable.