The Old Spice campaign is so ridiculous that I literally laugh every time I see one of the commercials. They are so ruthlessly and shamelessly misogynistic that I honestly don't know what to do besides laugh. I have included a clip of one of the commercials:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Aj55sgudlc
In the video, the man is standing in the locker room, in a towel, with dark hair and lots of muscles. Before he opens his mouth he screams stereotypical male, right? But then he does open his mouth. His aim is stop you from using "unmanly" deodorants. To prove that Old Spice is manly, he draws it on his body, and automatically sprouts body hair, suggesting that body hair is manly. He then goes on to explain that Old Spice helps you do manly things like basketball and French kissing.
I honestly don't know where to begin when evaluating this commercial. It is so sexist that it's laughable. The point is show how manly you are by what deodorant you use, combining the desire to be masculine with the desire to purchase and equating masculinity to superficiality. Additionally, the view that is presented of men in this commercial is that all read men are strong, over-masculine, muscular, and always shirtless--things that we all know to be false.
Ultimately, I'm not sure how effective this type of advertisement is. Everyone has seen, and probably laughed at, an Old Spice commercial. What I don't understand is how blatant sexism can be used to persuade...?
Oh but gender bias is what makes the advertising world go around. In my undergrad college days, I did some work for an advertising agency and even back then, sexism was alive and well in their ad campaigns. Your example of the Old Spice campaign is a perfect example of how blatant sexism is on advertisements. Gender roles of yore (1950s) have not caught up with this new network society we live in, where women vote, bring home the bacon, and run corporations. No, in tv land, women are used as spokesmodels for air freshners, kitchen cleaners, or being more efficient at baking for their nuclear family in the commerical. Men in commercials are always in the gender stereotypical role of the man of the house, bread-winner, romancer. You never see a gay man in a commercial, or a gay woman. You never see the divorced family or such used to sell products on tv, either. It's very interesting how advertisers strive to promote antiquated gender roles that no longer exist, in their commercials. I think its very damaging for advertisers to rely on gender bias and stereotypes to sell their products. Deoderant is neutral, yet the Old Spice campaign is to attach a gender to it. Same with Secret deoderant, which is a feminine deoderant. Notice the name "secret." That implies some shame to me, like women should hide their body odor from men, because body odor makes you unattractive to men. Right?
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