The Synchronization of Hope

Beginning around the mid-1900s, advertisements began to play a major role in how we, as a society, decide what to buy. Some ads attempt to sell you things, while others try and persuade you away from alleged detrimental supplements. But, no matter the intention of a particular ad, all of them apply some similar tactic to draw in a specific audience. Showing resistance to these ads prove to be difficult, particularly when Aristotle’s three basic rhetorical appeals of, pathos, logos, ethos, are being used. Tag body spray and the Axe body spray brands, are two different companies that attempt to draw in the same kind of audience, young males, ranging from their teens to early twenties. However, even though they both attempt to attract similar audiences, the Axe brand does a better job of appealing to their audience due to the ethos of Adolf Hitler.

Tag and Axe both apply the same tactic to attract their male audience. By using women as the focal point of their ad; they immediately gain the attention of hundreds of men. These two companies go about this simple maneuver by depicting the male in their ads, completely shrouded, and enmeshed by swarms of women. Often, the male is shown in a dominant, overbearing position, while the woman, a more submissive one, or the woman is shown dominant and the male is depicted as being powerless towards the woman’s seductive prowess. What this does to the ad is making it more noticeable, gaining the attention of people, lending them the idea that in purchasing this product they may potentially have the success of the male shown happily in the image. Not all audiences are drawn to these ads, however. In fact, despite the seeming flawless conveying of the man and woman in the Tag and Axe ads, t...

... middle of paper ...

...ey do not limit the sale of their brand strictly to an American cause; it’s because of this that they are able to attract a wider range of audience across the world. However, by using Hitler in their ad, though they may have gained more attention than their competitor (Tag), they may have also turned away some users of their brand who are not too particularly fond of Hitler. Tag, however, goes along with the same tactic of showing a powerless man being encompassed by over aggressive women. This is what makes this ad less appealing. In the Axe ad, they decided to go a step further in showing how much you should you their product, which is of course using the ethos of someone. While Tag does not, and fails to attract any newcomers to their brand. This one minor difference between the two is why I say that the Axe brand does a better job of appealing to their audience.