The Weird Science Behind How Deodorants Attract Women

                                                
Normally, a deodorant is used to prevent body odor. The tagline, 'Use our product and women won't be able to keep themselves away’, is common among most brands. Such advertisements present not only a fictitious world but also belittle women by portraying them as mere ‘magnets,’ having no autonomy in the face of the product. 

Axe was officially born in 1983, in France, in 2002 it entered the US market and slowly evolved to include deodorant sticks, shower gels, and hair care. Even as its product line evolved to suit the refined grooming practices and altering sensitivities of the modern man, its branding remained stuck in the old-school attitudes about romance. 

This extremely ridiculous picture is of the ‘Axe’ Commercial. The ad opens up with a boy whistling in a lift who gets scared and shifts to a corner as soon as the dog starts barking at him. Similarly happens with the woman who is presented in ‘short’ clothes as a weapon to lure men. 

Instead of asking her to stay away, the boy starts smiling like a lunatic and immediately applies the ‘axe deodorant’, she turns and smirks at him. How is it even possible for two strangers to be all smiles? Totally derisory!

Credits-Teige Hanley

“In ads suggesting that its scents would overpower all resistance, it was a winning formula: Axe sold $71 million worth product 2006, just four years after entering the US market.”  Said the Co-founder of AXE “We came up with this whole strategy about the Axe Effect, as though it was this amazing effect that once you spray it on, any woman would fall for you,” 

In other words, “that you’re not good enough — not attractive enough — until you wear a product that will make you attractive” and what makes watching these commercials worse is that this brand usually caters to a very young male audience, who are building up a dystopian vision of sexuality and adulthood. 

Dove deodorant is also an example of advertising exploiting gender stereotypes to attract both women and men. The initial advertisement for Dove deodorant was clearly targeted at a male audience. 

The slogan, "tough on sweat, not on skin" further plays into the male stereotype that men should be more physically active, rugged, tough. In one of the 'wild stone intense' ads, the tagline “log to notice karenge” is extremely problematic because a beautiful (fair, to be precise) and a sexually appealing lady is presented who while giving a presentation gets distracted when she observes a nice fragrance and finds a ‘dashing’ employee joining the meeting. 

This presents them as targets for male contentment. These kinds of ads build a fantasized narrative that women are automatically attracted to men who use ‘deodorants’ which ultimately, disparages the whole idea of feminism.

Another crucial thing to be noted is that these ads show female figure/s just to raise the ‘charm’ of the advertisements. The intelligence of all women is insulted by this concept. But, really, on a broader perspective, isn't that insulting to men's intelligence too—the brand's most obvious target market? 

Many commercials basically imply, "We don't think you're very clever, therefore we feel free to disrespect your intelligence by blatantly manipulating your anxieties and insecurities."

 Axe does a lot more, upsetting women AND playing on men's fears AND believing that portraying their product as a women-magnet will make men buy it AND that all men will like the sexist and chauvinistic connotations of their concept enough to be persuaded to buy it. This is an insult to the intelligence of a potential customer.

Such advertisements, especially the ones for men's deodorants present a very heteronormative view of society. Identities that exist outside of the gender binary are also ignored, and not represented on screen and thus promoting toxic masculinity. 

According to the statistics, 5.62 million Americans used Axe deodorant/antiperspirant 8 or more times within a week in 2020 and we can’t even imagine the number of ‘sexist’ mindsets here who would have just bought it not to feel fresh but to attract a particular gender! 

Ad makers should be mindful of the content that they’re showcasing because such ads don’t directly cause violence but they do normalize dangerous attitudes.

Written By: Aishwarya Neeraj