Shaun Hicks

September 29, 2010

Coner Shaw-Draves

English 1020

Lynx Body-wash Gel

            Turn on the television. Look at the half naked women run in the icy mountains as some guy with a really cool voice announce something for a beer so cold, that the bottle turns blue. Flick the channel some more and watch very attractive young models grace the screen with their appears for a perfume by some celebrity with five minutes of fame, and try to turn the channel again and watch a very provocative ad for… and so on and so forth. The never ending trend of television and advertisements the public see are growing more and more into an epidemic.

For the past few decades, the way advertisement companies target their audience has changed drastically. Rather than telling the consumer just to buy a product to help, benefit and improve their lives, companies find other more effective ways of marketing and selling their item to the consumer. When sitting and deciding how to get their product known on a global scale, they ask the age old question, “Why would anyone just want to buy some our product?” and the next question that follows is usually “How do we get people to buy our products?” The answer is simple, sex appeal.

Advertisements directly aimed towards men have used sex appeal to sell their products. By placing young attractive men and women into any scenario who are hardly dressed can sell anything from cars and clots to house paint and adult diapers. Anything to get the consumer to purchase their product has been used to pull them in to purchasing products. Sometimes companies use sex appeal to sell products that could have been stated in other ways. Recently PETA advertisements have used endorsed celebrities who are very attractive and young rather than the images of brutally abused animals. Other companies that use unnecessary sex appeal to sell their products are known amongst everyone, but a particular market that recently upped the stakes is the market aimed towards men such as men’s hygiene products.

By using sex appeal, companies such as Lynx use sex to get to their male audience to purchase their items. The caption catch line of the photo, “Lynx shower gel, Get dirty” grabs men into buying their product. By using logos, the company indirectly implies if anyone want to get a hot girl in their shower, simply use their body wash. Women will want men to wash them if they use a particular brand of body wash. Rather than advertising the benefits of their product, Lynx directly puts it out there that women want clean men.

Sex appeal is one of the oldest ways to sell a product that have recently become a predominant marketing tool in the past few decades. Rather than telling the consumer to buy a product based on how it benefits society, some companies have taken the approach of simply attaching attractive young men and women onto the marketing line. Rather than telling men that they stink so use this body-wash, tell them that women will engage in promiscuous, risky sexual behavior with them if they just use their body- wash and the stores will have to huge stocking issue. By telling the consumer that women will come from the use of the product, most men logically connect the dots, me plus Lynx shower gel equals clean and good smelling which attracts more women because that’s what they like.

A company like Lynx uses the emotional appeal towards men to advertise their product. Many men like the idea that there is a product out there in the world that could make it easier to pick up women. The idea of just washing up with a product would give many men the confidence and help they need, no matter his social status. Advertising companies uses ambiguity to put every man in the place of the man in front of the hot woman in the shower. By doing this, unpopular men and men who is not the ideal man could feel a self confidence boost. Emotionally and logically speaking, if he is confident enough, then he would go out and buy their product.

The advertisement has many underlining tones and meaning that they do not specifically outline. They indirectly infer that men are using shower gel in the first place as opposed to bar soap. Since the consumer is already using body wash, they might as well use theirs.

The advertisement also infers that using their body wash is one direct way to help men live up to the bachelor image. Because the man, or woman, she is enticing is not specifically identified, this ad can reach to the male, or female, consumer of any and all ages. The advertisement is very ambiguous in its image of the image, age, appearance, profession, race, religion, etc of the man, but one thing is clear in the advertisement; the young attract, in shape, Caucasian young woman who is desperate for the consumer to “wash her”.

This ad could imply indirectly that young Caucasian females engage in risky behavior with men. Also the advertisement could infer that Caucasian women are the most attractive women to achieve and that they are so drawn to a man with great body wash.  The advertisement pulls the reader into the ad specifically by placing the point of view from an eye prospective, practically by putting the consumer into the shower with the attractive young woman. Many men could connect to this idea simply because this is the reason why they would want to buy the product.

This advertisement would more than likely be placed inside of a magazine prominently read by men. From a sports page of a news paper to an entire magazine dedicated to men, this ad would be place in between the magazine right next to the article of the Super Bowl’s star quarter back and an editorial opinion on this year’s NBA’s stats.  This advertisement would also probably be shown in a common magazine, nothing too high class because this advertisement is for the exceptional average man, nothing too special. Bill gates is not expected to buy this product neither is someone off of some famous show, however the average working man of any age, preferences, religion, or values could all see this ad in one of their every day over the counter magazines. This ad would also have a high chance of being shown to young adults that are in their teenage years. During this stage of their life their hormones are out of control and seeing a commercial that could possibly get them a date with the opposite sex by making them smell good would influence most young males to buy this product.

The new trend to use sex as a main marketing tool is a timeless and the most popular way to get products well known quickly. Using sexual appeal is the most logical and emotional way to sell a product effectively to a very apathetic audience. Marketing towards men is one of the very few audiences that sexual appeal really works on and advertising companies have taken on the bull full force.

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