Advertising is used in all aspects of everyday life, in magazines, newspapers, billboards, television and radio. They aim to show their product to be bigger and better than any other product out there. Advertisers use color, text, and images to get the reader's attention, so that they can influence the viewer's opinion of their product, therefore persuade them to buy their product rather than their competitor’s.
I have chosen to analyze the Axe Excite advertisement. The audience for this advertisement is young men between the ages of 10 to 35. The advertisement’s purpose is to persuade the viewer to purchase their body spray by portraying their product as a lure to attract beautiful women. This advertisement uses both words and pictures equally to attract, inform and persuade the reader to buy their product.
When viewing this advertisement the viewers are shown beautiful angels falling from the sky. The advertiser uses this to gain the viewers’ attention. After showing multiple angels fall from the sky, all the angels approach a young man and throw down their halos. The breaking of their halos portrays that the angels are so attracted by the fragrance, that they are willing to break their inhibitions. Because of the alluring fragrance of the Axe body spray, angels will fall from heaven.
Next the advertisers show the same man spraying body spray on himself and all of a sudden there is a thud on the roof. This scene is trying to show the viewer that the body spray was what caused the angels to fall from heaven.
The commercial plays off of a series of verses in the bible: Jude 1:6-7, Isaiah 12-14, Genesis 6:1-4, Matthew 24:37, Acts 4:12. In short, these verses state that angels will fall from the heavens and come for the mortal humans. This commercial may be offending to very religious people, but will appeal to most when taken with a sense of humor. The people that this commercial would most likely be appealing to are young men that are interested in attracting women by using spray on deodorant.
The goal in all advertising is to get the audience to do something; in this case it is to buy their product. There are many different types of advertisements and commercials are just one type. There are also different ways to appeal to viewers or listeners, and this commercial is trying to use humor to get you to buy Axe Excite body spray.