Axe, Find Your Magic

Whenever you drive down the road you see an ad. Whenever you’re on your phone or watching T.V. you will see ads. Ads are all around you wherever you go; it is close to impossible to go a day without seeing one single ad. All ads have one specific purpose, and that purpose is to make viewers intrigued to buy exactly what is being advertised. Advertisers use three strategies to draw viewers to ads, pathos, logos and ethos. These deal with emotions, logic and facts, and credibility. Ads can range anywhere from just words to pictures and if you look hard enough you will be able to locate these appeals within every ad you see. Bauer uses the appeals of pathos, logos and ethos to convince viewers that their hockey stick, the Vapor APX, is far better than any of their competitor’s sticks.

When endorsing a commonly used product, such as laundry detergent, it is important to utilize pathos, ethos, and logos adequately in order to effectively sell the intended product. “The OxiClean Archives Billy Mays It’s Amazing Classic Commercial” utilizes the three rhetorical strategies exceptionally well. To promote OxiClean, Billy Mays effectively connects to his planned audience by establishing a common interest, earns credibility with his famous reputation, and uses reasoning to prove OxiClean’s performance. While the OxiClean commercial mainly relies on its extensive use of pathos and ethos, it still demonstrates a small amount of reasoning.

What is it that drives commercials towards their target audience? Commercials can be aimed toward certain age, race, along with certain gender groups. Pop culture has influenced minority groups and shed light on women 's rights or so it may seem. Lisa Shaffer a fellow student feels otherwise and believes that Pop culture has only defended traditional values and does little to challenge those who already have power . Commercials bring in gender norms and in Steve Craig’s article, “Men’s Men and Women’s Women” he speaks on four particular TV ads directed towards male and female audiences. Interestingly enough these tv ads deliver a false image of the opposite sex to the audience catering to their preferences. It is the image of what the audience wants to see that appeals to them. This is all in an attempt to sell products and take advantage of our desires and anxieties. Craig shows how commercials bring gender norms that produce the stigmas of a man’s man and a woman’s woman, which makes it apparent that he would agree with Shaffer because it promotes an old way of thinking.

Advertisements are everywhere. From billboards, to magazines, to newspapers, flyers and TV commercials, chances are that you won’t go a day without observing some sort of ad. In most cases, companies use these ads as persuasive tools, deploying rhetorical appeals—logos, pathos, and ethos—to move their audiences to think or act in a certain way. The two magazine ads featured here, both endorsing Pedigree products, serve as excellent examples of how these modes of persuasion are strategically used.

 The thing that is effective is the teens are all dead at the end so it shows not to follow people who smoke.

In the short article by Steve Craig, Men’s Men and Women’s Womens, the author gives an important special to how television commercials portray gender to different audiences. He describes how an advertisers creates their attractive advertisement to appeal either male or females consumers.An advertisement that targets a specific gender to give interest to the gender to consume their product. Secondly, specific advertisement are played at select times to be seen by a specific set of people. But most importantly television programming is gendered by creating advertisements with considering their target audience needs and to give pleasure to their fantasies. I agree with this type of method to attract society to make money.

A quite common misconception of advertising is that only women are sexually objectified to sell a product, when in most cases men are just as sexually glorified. Men are shown in an array of different types of ads such as ones for cologne, razors, alcohol, etcetera. Depending on the product being sold there is a very distinguishable type of man being shown. Classy men in suits, manly guys with large muscles and excessive facial hair, or men surrounded by varying amounts of beautiful women. These three general types of males are depicted this way because that is generally how most men strive to be.

Ethos is credibility, and the audience is provided this by the well-known actor Terry Crews, who just happens to be known for his masculinity, this leads the target audience, which is men, to believe that if they use Old Spice, they will be thought of as manly as Crews. Old Spice has also used other Actors such as Isaiah Mustafah and Neil Patrick Harris to help support the idea that Old Spice gives you a more masculine appeal, this helps with credibility since men are aspiring to be like them.

Steve Craig, in his article Men’s Men and Women’s Women especially define how different sexes in advertisement can influence a particular audience towards a product; one stereotypical method he describes is “Men’s Women” (Craig).One such ad using sex appeal, and a basic structure of “Men’s Women” to bring in customer was made by BMW in 2008 to sell their used cars. BMW, which is a world-renowned company known for its performance heavy automobiles, targets a male audience by comparing a gorgeous woman to their cars.This ad by BMW, who no doubt make amazing cars, degrade women through its message, and it enforces Steve Craig’s “Men’s women” tactic, but this ad also goes a step further and displays the ever-present patriarchy in advertisement overtly.

In the beginning of the ad, a group of individuals were asked questions like, “What does it mean to run like a girl?, What does it mean to fight like a girl?, and What does it mean to throw like a girl?” (Always, Procter & Gamble) The individuals asked to demonstrate these moves ranged from adult males, females, and a young boy. Noticing the age and gender of each person is an important display of ethos. If these questions were asked to all females or males, or to only age range, the commercial would not have the same meaning. If only males

Jumping to conclusions based off of too few example stereotypes is called hasty generalization. Jumping to conclusions is exactly what Axe products do. The audience of Axe products are men. Everyone knows that the audience of Axe products are men because, on the back of any Axe product, there are two pictures showing that if men want to get women, then they have to wear Axe. The two pictures on the back show, one a man using Axe and then the other picture is showing a woman standing right next to the man giving the man attention. The man now gets attention because that is result of using Axe products. Axe is basically saying if men do not wear Axe, then they will not get the women. Also, on the back of the products, there are even little saying

The Tiger Beer advertisement shown in the appendix is a clear example of the objectification of women in advertising. The Tiger Beer advert was made to appeal to men from the age of 20 to 60. The advert seeks to get a cheap laugh from the target audience with the image of the woman in a sexual pose and the picture of the beer. The ad promotes the idea that beer is the most

Cleaning commercials use various techniques to persuade their audiences to buy their products. Through different advertising techniques, they are able to convey their messages and identify who their target audience is. This is true for most, but in the end some companies are more successful than others in doing so.

For example, the “Leo Messi on the road to the 2014 FIFA World Cup™ - Fast” commercial advertises a pair of Adidas soccer cleats. Furthermore, the ad is trying to persuade young athletes to buy this product. The appeal is to ethos because the ad relies on the credibility of a professional athlete. The next ad in this time slot is from Old Spice, “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.” This is in the demographic category of gender as it appeals to both men and women. Men will be great if they wear the product. Also, women should buy the product so their man will smell great.

In the marketer’s eyes, in order to attract people’s attention on what they want is to first segregate the commercial in to which type of person the product is going to be sold to, then break it down in an obvious way – showing major differences in the general public’s interests, sorting ‘the consumer’ down to a more focused group of people; as if one were looking past a continuous stream of red squares, then notice’s a blue square, he or she will notice the blue square standing out from the red squares; the blue square being the advertisement that fits to that person’s personality. For example if there was a commercial for a truck produced by a typical American organization, the advertisement shows masculinity and manliness in extensive ways, with mud, heavy weights, and other things. With a Victoria’s Secret advertisement, the milieu is very sensual and scandalous, showing light colors such as pink or white, all while having a soft, fluffy tone to it. There is no escape in gender roles and profiling when it comes to marketing; people who want to sell their product will use the most effective means necessary, no matter if it is morally sound or not . If companies were to have general broadened commercials, then summarize a product and ends up not narrowing down to specific consumer needs, then in most cases it would not interest the customer and could quite possibly render the purpose utterly useless.