Feeling Clean, Sold Through Stupid - Men

Watching TV with me is never an easy task. If I’m not randomly picking on the show itself (doesn’t matter if I like the show or not) you can be assured that my temper will flare once we get to the commercials. I get the concept of advertising but there are two particular breeds of commercial that really fucking get me going: soap and deodorant.

Soap (and bodywash), and deodorant are very targeted forms of advertising, dividing certain brands strictly by gender. For instance Axe (more on them later) is supposed to be for men, Olay is for women; and all brands seem to use the same techniques to sell to their target market - the problem is, the techniques are really fucking stupid.

Today I’ll be covering some of the advertising for men’s products:

Most men’s soap and deodorant commercials tend to be loud and X-treme!, or they use the message that using their product above all others will cause women to come running from every direction, flocking to your unrelenting scent which must make you a sex god. Apparently these women attracted by your choice in soap have their priorities wrong because they seem impressed that you understand how to use a device as complex as a fucking sponge.

An example of the loud and X-treme! advertising is Old Spice. Apparently sick of being considered your grandfather’s deodorant Old Spice came out with a bunch of new scents meant to draw in the younger crowd. And how did they advertise it? Why they got a big black man to scream and flex his pecs at you, beause obviously OLD SPICE WILL KICK YOUR ASS AND STOMP CITIES TO THE FUCKING GROUND! Now there is one featuring a football player waxing religious about his deodorant and the dimension it lives in, then he eats something he had previously ripped out of his chest and grows 6 more heads that all shoot lightning... because thats what most people want to smell like - a philosophical, 7-headed, lightning-puking football player

Axe, as previously mentioned is currently running a “World’s Manliest RItuals” series of deodorant commercials that promises to find the manliest ritual in the world, guaranteed to attract women. The manliest ritual supposedly being their “Pit, Pit, Chest” manuever where you spray their body spray into one armpit, then another, then spray their acrid douche stench across your chest. This is supposed to be the manliest ritual in the world, the ability to hold a button down while moving a can around your body. Again, perhaps the talent to not spray yourself in the eyes with the product is what women are most attracted to.

Their specialized sponge, the who-would-waste-their-goddamn-money-on-this-overpriced-piece-of-shit Axe Detailer isn’t advertised any better. In fact, the commercial for it has changed to a slightly less obvious inuendo-laden assault on your TV screen. See, the commercial features Jaime Pressley and some way too skinny chick in a way too tight shirt (you can count her ribs AND see her nipples) in an infomercial-like setting discussing how clean the detailer can get... your balls. Oh hang on, it gets better because they use golf balls at first, then a scrawny hairy cracker stands up and asks if it can clean “these”, his tennis balls - to which Jaime in all her classy glory commands him to, “Throw those fuzzy suckers down here!” The last guy we get is a black man who stands up and asks, “What about this?” while pointing to the sack of soccer balls between his legs. So, we get an entire commercial about how important it is to really scrub your balls, a “black guys have bigger cocks” joke, and its all hosted by a skinny European hooker and Jaime Pressly... brilliant. Fucking brilliant.

The funny part is, most of the people I know who use these products are just the type of douche-nozzles I’d expect that kind of advertising to work on. You can smell them coming a mile away since they don’t understand moderation. You can also skewer small animals on their hair due to the amount of hair gel used to spike it up. Basically any of the guys on Jersey Shore. 

Later on I’ll cover commercials for similar products, but targeting women and the vast differences between them and the male counterparts.