Axe: The Axe Effect
People buy products for various reasons. The most logical reason we buy products is to satisfy our most basic needs such as food, shelter, and health. The larger reason we buy products is to complete the missing gap in who we are and who want to be. We have been taught to believe that we are incomplete and unable to become that which we want to be without certain products. Now that being said, all advertising plays on this to a certain degree: you want to jump higher and run faster, buy Nike; you want to be envied and stand out from the others buy an Audi; you want to attract girls and make them uncontrollably attracted to you buy Axe.
Since hitting the US market in 2002, Axe has taken the anti-perspirant and deodorant market by storm. Axe has reinvented body spray with a refreshing and entertaining marketing campaign aimed at 18-24 year old males. With the help of ads that are aimed at men’s eagerness to attract women, Axe continuously refreshes their perspective on the mating game. (Business Wire)
The ads unveiled by Axe are, in all honesty, funny to some and offensive to others. They are funny to exactly who they are aimed towards: men. They do not have to appeal to everyone because Axe is not targeted to everyone. Certain women do find the advertisements to be offensive and crude. They do portray the male as the more coveted one while women are an item at his beckon call who have merely their sexuality to offer men and if he chooses to, he could go through women as quickly as he wants. However, another interesting point is that women do buy this product for their partners. Perhaps the advertising is not so crude and offensive and in fact when already in a stable relationship, the women do like to use their sexuality in a different way or perhaps they just like the way it leaves their partner smelling.
Axe has capitalized on the old advertising strategy – Sex Sells. But if this is a well known advertising strategy why didn’t Old Spice or Degree rush to market first with this marketing campaign. It could have been any number of reasons including:
-Different Target Market
-Set in marketing campaign
-Didn’t predict a market shift
Any of these could have been a reason why the competitors did not act while Axe did. Axe saw a new way to advertise body spray and deodorants and it paid off well for them as they became the industry leader in both categories. Axe has created something simple, general hygiene, and transformed it in to a channel with the potential for acquiring more female mates for men. Sex does sell and Axe has proven that with body spray and a good marketing campaign (let’s not forget that).
As I mentioned before, advertisements are aimed at helping consumers attain that certain aspiration that they long for, even if it is the advertisers who create that false sense of need. Axe saw that male users would associate scent with increased likelihood of sex and they focused their campaigns around it. These advertisements focused on the link between what males are and who they wish to become. The large population of males between 18-24 are constantly looking for a partner and wish they could chased by several females at any given time. In society, the more partners a male has the better it is and more of a man it makes him. Axe has given him the golden ticket to transform in to what he wants to be - irresistible to females. The axe effect has undeniably led 18-24 males think that Axe is the missing piece between who most men are and what most men are capable of becoming.
Link for Business Wire:
J - I like the overall idea you have presented here and I think your points are valid and will be interesting for further research. I'm not exactly clear on what you think your paper might cover, but perhaps you plan to flesh that out more as you continue your research. Perhaps even articulating some of your main questions might help with the early formation of a structure to your paper. Are you just planning to focus on Axe as a case study and/or are you planning to look at the Axe effect on the rest of the personal care market for men (as well as maybe even outside of personal care)? Let me know if you want to talk more as you continue to develop your idea.
ReplyDelete