(Sound of a metal-spring doorstop vibrating)

Before anyone gets too angry with me, the only thing ‘awful’ about these commercials are the implicit messages to men that body spray will have some kind of magic power over women. I think these spots are well done, and in the case of the Axe Body Spray commercial under review, will promptly drop everything to closely examine the spot for continuity errors when it comes on television.

This first collection of spots by RGX seem to be in response to the Axe body spray ads, trying to talk some reason into men who believe that swarms of supermodels will descend upon you if only enough body spray is applied. They certainly have picked a hot, alluring girl to communicate this message. The only problem is that men really will tend to be more easily influenced by visual messages and subconscious signals that are not difficult to process (like dialogue).

This spot does do a good job of positioning its product as an alternative for anyone experiencing Axe-back (negative connotations with the product because it seems to be so widely used and over-applied).

A horde of woman can skeletonize a human being in a matter of seconds in the Amazon basin

The above commercials for RGX, while very hot, just don’t have the wow factor of ads like this for Axe, featuring countless supermodels crossing the wilderness to close in on a man covering himself in body spray.

It doesn’t really matter if wearing too much of this stuff is obnoxious, as long as the commercial gets guys thinking more is better they are going to both buy the product, and use too much of it (ensuring they buy more of the product faster, thereby spending more money).

It’s hard enough to sell perfume to men, but while you’re at it you might as well take advantage of the fact they don’t know how to use it.

The jury is still out on these spots, and I feel as though I must continue watching them over and over before I render a final verdict.

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