An Adventure with Axe Body Spray

            In class on Tuesday, we were assigned to bring in an "ethically questionable" advertisement.  One of the first advertisements that came to mind was basically every Axe advertisement.  I'm pretty sure that any of their advertisements has left me feeling taken advantage of as a woman.  Okay, maybe that's a little extreme.  But I can tell you their advertisements sure don't make me feel good about myself as a woman.

            On my search for one of the advertisements that I had seen, I came across some pretty crude ones.  This website had so many to choose from, but of course none of them seemed appropriate enough to bring to class.  Most of them aren't outright appalling, but they allude to some pretty sexual things.  Though I did not choose any of the ads from this site, it gave me the reinforcement that I needed to keep looking for one of the Axe advertisements that I have seen that was appropriate enough to show to class.

            This is the advertisement that I ended up selecting (which I have seen on network television)...

            Still pretty inappropriate, but I figured it would be okay to show in class.  The main idea is that hair is the first thing women notice in men, and breasts are the first thing men notice in women.  I would like to believe that for the most part, this is not true.  This particular advertisement is pretty subjective to women, and men too (but not nearly as much).  Definitely "ethically questionable" in my opinion.

            In my search for an "ethically questionable" advertisement, I came to the realization that there are quite a few out there.  And Axe is definitely a culprit.  I do realize that shock value can sometimes be a factor in advertising, but I think Axe needs to tone it back a bit.  As a girlfriend, I'm not sure I would be comfortable having my boyfriend wear Axe, no matter how good it smells.