AXE Apollo: Reinforcing Tired Stereotypes
Keith’s note: Official AXE slogan: “Leave a man. Come back a hero.” (Sigh) So much for the other half of humanity. I guess girls need not apply to this promotional stunt for a chance to fly into space.
Keith’s note: Official AXE slogan: “Leave a man. Come back a hero.” (Sigh) So much for the other half of humanity. I guess girls need not apply to this promotional stunt for a chance to fly into space.
To borrow a little from Sgt Hulka: “Lighten up Francis”
Whether we like it or not, AXE is marketing towards their clientele – almost exclusively a young male base. Only just last year did they introduce a product for women. And whether we like it, or even if we hate it, it
only makes sense for a company to gear their commercials first and foremost towards their primary target customers. If other folks like Calvin Klein or Gucci wanted to try to do the same-spaceflight oriented commercial, but spun for professional women, they’re welcome to do it, and good luck.
Also, most of the Superbowl ads were played for laughs — like this one tried to do. Admittedly, this was nowhere near a “ROFLMAO” rating, but it still got a grin out of the corner of my mouth: first after the “Nothing Beats an Astronaut” caption, followed by when the helmet was lifted, the “astronaut”
was revealed to be one of the nerdiest nerd ever to geek-out a spacesuit, the only thing missing was a taped-up pair of black BCD eyeglasses (btw, the guy even looked a tad like TBBT’s Howard Wolowitz). Yet even so, none of that fazed the girl.
Again if, say, Ralph Lauren, wanted to do a similar-themed commercial, geared towards women, perhaps it could be something along the lines of said maile life guard, dropping said rescued bimbo (this is played for humor, remember), and trotting to meet said “astronaut” upon revealing a strong fit “astro-woman” (or even a geek-ette)
Sorry about the random carriage-returns… don’t know why they did this.
Disqus has never been able to figure out how to do line-breaks properly. It is especially thrown by cut’n’pasted text. But you can fix it after you’ve posted, by clicking the “edit” button under your comment. Disqus usually gets it right on the second attempt.
Yeah! Lighten up! Reinforcing misogynistic stereotypes is totally cool if you do it to make money by framing your advertising as a joke!
It’s just good old-fashioned for-profit sexism!
It’s not like reinforcing these stereotypes has any effect in the world, after all.
And Brian can tell you from his own personal experience that making a nice big profitable joke out of stereotyping women hasn’t hurt him one bit!
I find it humorous. Sexist? Probably as sexist as putting a nearly naked male model flexing his muscles in a commercial trying to get MEN to buy underwear (Calvin Klein Superbowl commercial).
If people would spend less time letting others influence their feelings and laughed a little more, we might find that this world isn’t all that bad after all.
I feel like only 13 year old males will be their client base.
I mean, it’s ridiculous and I think it’s actually hurting the brand and giving it a bad reputation. It’s simple: If you’re trying to sell a fragrance to a man, by telling him it’ll attract a girl, when the whole brand in itself is repulsive or a marketing joke to most females, that’s just a waste of money for the male. So I guess AXE in that manner does win, but only for short term.
Old spice is in the lead