Axe

Did anybody else see this article in the New York Times about how boys are spraying foul Axe products all over themselves because they're morons (IQ: 51–70)?

Here's what I couldn't believe about this article: fairly early on we read, "The surge [in popularity among younger boys] is certainly due in large measure to new marketing strategies," and the reporter does acknowledge that this has to do with boys' attempts to "position themselves with their texting, titillating, brand-savvy female peers" but then focuses on tie-in deals and viral marketing; nowhere does the article explicitly acknowledge or bother to focus on the content of Axe's advertising campaign, which seems to me to be the entire story.

Axe's ads all focus on the claim—a lie that they get away with making by winking while making it—that Axe is a magical love potion, essentially a mind-control gas, that will make its user sexually irresistible to beautiful women. The closest this article comes to acknowledging that is the following passing (and dismissive!) note: "while men's colognes have been marketed since at least the last century for their irresistibility to women..."

People: Axe's ads may fit into a long tradition, but they aren't just another in a long series of essentially identical messages—even if there's nothing new in the concept, at the very least they up the ante. Observe:

Is the above video the same deal as this one, linked to by the Times article? Yes and no, innit?

Anyway, comparing it to other ads is not the point. The point is that boys' reason for choosing Axe in particular is that Axe is the brand that's currently telling them that Axe is directly linked to sexual attractiveness—that there is an "Axe effect"—a causal connection that the article weirdly seems to ignore. The focus on an increase in sexual insecurity among younger boys is reasonable—I mean, that is a story—but the failure to focus on this company's exploitation of that insecurity troubles me: it almost seems to endorse the idea that Axe's products actually do have some connection to sexual attraction beyond the, I'm sorry, lies in their advertisements.

What the article does not acknowledge is that these boys are just young enough that they are just stupid enough to consume these ads with a singular credulity, particularly in an ad-laden culture that discourages critical thinking—as perhaps is best demonstrated by a newspaper article adopting a kind of "How about that!" attitude toward Axe's popularity without stating plainly, clearly, and up front, "This product is best known for its ad campaign that basically asserts to boys that using it WILL GET THEM LAID." Treating that as irrelevant forgives and enables ad companies' tendency to pass lies off as jokes; our youngest (and dumbest) citizens pay the stinky price.

A parent quoted in the article might as well be speaking for the article itself: "Axe has commercials?"