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DEODORANTS ADVERTISING CASE STUDY

George Rossolatos, June 2012

Old Spice advertising

Ad script

Establishing shot: Close-up to the spokesperson - establishment of authority

Wide-angle camera POV to the ensuing sequence [full shot]: Hello ladies, where

can you go when your man smells like me?

Close your eyes and I will show you [PAUSE]

Can you feel it? The sand between your toe-toes. I do!

Sequence 2 [FADE OUT-FADE IN; lap-dissolve]: Surprise, you’re on a mountain

peak; what little sweet sha-la-la’s you love to hear.

Sequence 3 [FADE OUT-FADE IN; lap-dissolve]: Firework colors, turn our world

upside down [bridging shot].

Sequence 4 [FADE OUT-FADE IN ; lap-dissolve]: I hope you like water, because

when neck-deep in the sweet waters of friendship and trust.

You see, when your man smells like the fresh scents of Old Spice…

Sequence 5 [FADE OUT-FADE IN ; lap-dissolve; focus-pull; voice tone and pitch

manipulation]: …you can go anywhere…Unless, of course, you prefer to stay…in.

Closing shot [superimpose]: Whistling sonic marker & Brand logo & [punchline]

Smell like a man, man.

Multimodality in focus

The dominant modality in this commercial is verbal. Visual and sonic signs are

supportive and function as supplementary anchors to the verbal narrative that is

deployed by the key actor. The following sound effects (SFX) are employed by

sequence: Natural environment SFX (Sequence 1), Goat SFX (transition from

Sequence 1 to Sequence 2), Haarp SFX (Sequence 2), Air SFX (Sequence 2),

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Fireworks SFX (Sequence 3), Natural water SFX (Sequence 4), Violin SFX

(Sequence 5). The sonic marker of whistling (8 whistlings) enhances orally the

brand’s signature.

The surface discursive structure of the ad text

The text appeals to a male audience through appeal to an inter-gender dialectic and

through appeal to emotions. It dramatizes the negative experiences associated with

odorous armpits, that is avoidance of public places, through a reversal strategy that

avoids direct representation of the negative aspects of odorous armpits (i.e. extreme

close-ups to the concerned body parts), while opting for an explicit stress on the

positive aspects of non-odorous armpits (i.e. freedom of movement). The narrative

capitalizes on peer-pressure exerted by women towards men in the context of an

inter-gender dialectic, by addressing men as seen through the eyes of women (and

men who are not sympathetic towards odorous armpits). The reversal strategy

pursued at the level of exposition of a negative experience is also manifested at the

level of stereotypes. As against portraying females as the object of desire of males,

males are portrayed as the object of desire for females. Old Spice assumes the

character of object of desire by appealing to the positive emotive associations

potentially formed by a female audience in the absence of the negative experience of

odorous armpits. Thus, the rhetorical technique of antanaclasis[1] employed in the

punchline in the closing sequence «Smell like a man, man» plays on the double

entendre of the lexeme «man», where in the first instance it connotes the Old Spice

prototypical representation of man, as desired object for women by virtue of not being

associated with the odorous concept of man, whereas in the second instance it

denotes the non-Old Spice concept of a man with odorous armpits, which is in line

with stereotypical representations about the hormone producing male species.

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The brand’s signification is established through a relay function, where the meaning

of each sequence is suspended, until closure is effected through the closing

sequence.

Hybrid Mythopoetic/urban sociocultural natural co-text

The ad text is anchored in a mythopoetic context of variable ontological intensity.

Sociocultural oppositions are progressively dissolved in the brand’s discourse that

effects a coincidentia oppositorum. The myth, in Levi-Strauss’s terms, affords to

resolve the anxiety stemming from mismanagable and tantalizing oppositions, by

furnishing a space, where these oppositions dissolve in a higher order. This is

reminiscent of the Synthesis phase in the Human GDA model.

The mythopoetic context is edified on a cosmological discursive order, where

«man» (in the second sense) passes through the four elements of nature (earth, air,

fire, water) in order to be «reborn» in the sublating discursive order instituted in the

text of Old Spice. The inter-textual anchoring of the Old Spice ad text in the

discursive order of a cosmological account affords to invest the brand with deeply

laden associations. These associations are facilitated by a fusion of the cosmological

account with an urban setting, as suggested by the closing sequence, that reinstates

the mythic elements in an urban predicament.

The deployment of the brand’s myth is enacted against the background of

prototypical representations in the form of master visual signifiers that function

metaphorically as follows:

Earth (the beach setting of the second sequence)

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The visual of the goat, symbol of fertility with theological connotations (i.e.

Satan, Lucifer, the goat-faced pagan god Pan), connected with earth and matter and

tied up with the lexeme «surprise» (matter as pure chance) which is

succeeded/sublated by the Apollonian (as suggested by the visual sign of the Haarp)

spirit, in line with the Dionysian/Apollonian dialectic put forward by Nietzsche in the

Birth of Tragedy.

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The classical oppositions are sublated by the brand’s mythic structure, which

gives rise to a third perspective or a hybrid discourse, wherein the «old concept» of

an odorous man is dissolved into a new world of desired and non-odorous men.

Thus, drawing on Fairclough’s model (text-discourse-socio-cultural) the emergence

of a new sociocultural order, which values men as objects of desire for women, is

coupled with a new value system that replaces the old concept of odorous man with

the new concept of man, equipped with the «fresh scents of Old Spice». From a CDA

point of view, this ad text also portrays lucidly the process whereby a dominant

discourse is instituted. This new cultural order is brought about textually through the

institution of new metonymical relationships, such as sand for smell, which evokes

synaesthetically the repulsive feeling of smelly armpits, by playing on the

consonance between sand and smell, thus instituting audiovisually a conjunction in

absentia, also facilitated by the rhetorical question «Can you feel it in your toe-toes»?

(sand in your toes generates a feeling of inconveniece and so does a nasty smell).

Cultural oppositions

Friendship/trust vs Danger/Alienation

On a sentential level, «sweet waters of friendship and trust» (sequence 4)

connote the constrained territory demarcated by the brand’s discourse, a befriending

discursive territory, as against the salted, cruel, open sea of wilderness and

alienation. The brand promise «You can go anywhere» is constrained in the

brand’s discursive territory, while consumers’ values orientation is effected by the

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rhetorical topography instituted by the brand’s internal grammar in the brand’s ad

text. If the brand promise were to be perceived literally, then it would lead to a

contradiction in terms, as suggested by the disjunction in absentia that emerges by

reading the brand promise «anywhere» through its posited opposite, that is as

venturing in the salted seas of wilderness and alienation. This is a clear incidence of

suppressing contradictions as a reading-through the logical implications of the key

terms posited in the ad text.

Inside/Outside

The values with which the inside/outside dialectic is invested are bifurcated.

The disjunction in absentia instituted through the sweet waters metaphor suggests

that outside of the brand’s discourse lies danger. The monologue of the closing

sequence suggests that with Old Spice you can go anywhere, which «anywhere» in

fact consists in the rhetorical loci sanctioned by the brand’s discourse, which

discourse culminates in a coincidentia oppositorum, where the primary elements of

creation are sublated in the immanentized cosmogonic account. The closing

utterance «unless, of course, you prefer to stay … in» constitutes a

Lynx advertising

Ad script

New Lynx Excite.

Even Angels will fall.

Multimodality in focus

The dominant modality in this commercial is visual. The oral modality (a cover

version of Air’s song «Sexy Boy») is employed as background music investment, but

with a transposition of music genre from pop electronica to choir music (in line with

the thematic structure of the commercial). The verbal modality is employed in the

closing packshot, which effects a meaning closure on the narrative.

The surface discursive structure of the ad text

The commercial portrays a group of women in the form of angels falling from

the sky on a popular sub-urban location (rather like a village setting). The «fall» has

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been instigated by the Lynx deodourant fragrance, which has been sprayed onto a

male biker’s body. The female angels renounce their sanctity by smashing their

nimbus, march towards the biker (in a catwalk style) with a voluptuous look, and give

in (as an implicature) to the carnal pleasures promised by the Lynx brand. The biker,

half naked in the closing sequence, directs his gaze towards the sky in utter dismay,

while linking the angels’ fall with the Lynx effect.

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The mythopoetic co-text of the Lynx ad text

The text apparently capitalizes on the theological myth of the fallen angels

and the perennial dialectic of good vs. evil. However, it gives a new twist to the myth.

Whereas in the original version angels fell because they disobeyed the will of God, in

the Lynx version angels fell because they were attracted to the new Lynx fragrance.

Additionally, whereas angels in the original text are sex-less, in the Lynx narrative

they are females.

This pictorial representation of angels plays on the double entendre of angel,

as a sexless, winged mythopoetic entity, and as used in «natural language», that is

as a metaphor for a person of exceptional beauty. The ad text’s narrative opens up a

hybrid, third way of interpreting the concept of angel, by fusing theological with urban

metaphors. Additionally, as with the case of Old Spice, there is a reversal of

stereotypes, where the male is posited as the object of desire and females as

predators.

The myth of the «fall» is resemanticized in the context of the brand’s

discourse, while effecting a parallel shift of the causal driver behind the fall, from God

to Lynx. This metonymical transposition attains to effect a «benefits-transfer»,

through reversal, from God to the person who applies Lynx to his body, that is to

man. Man becomes God by applying Lynx, to which even angels are lured. Paradise

is lost only to be regained in the immanent world of carnal desire. Thus, from a CDA

point of view, a new sociocultural ethos is instituted through the ad text’s inter-textual

import of the notion of «sanctity», as a conversion from transcendental to immanent

values (the smashing of the nimbus), and particularly at the bodily level. Lynx

celebrates Nietzsche’s death of God, by replacing God with man, a fragranced man

to whose attraction even angels can’t resist.

In terms of discursive type (drawing on Bahktin’s intra/inter discoursal levels),

the ad follows up on preceding employments of the Angel visual metaphor in ad texts

from brands, such as Philadelphia cream cheese, Lancia cars and Victoria’s Secret

fragrance.

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Right Guard advertising

Ad Script

Opening sequence [located in a movie-theater, where a couple is watching a horror

movie]: Male actor sitting on movie theater seat, holding pop-corn, next to his

girlfriend [camera angle focusing on sweaty armpit POV]

Sequence 2: [sound from the film] Aaahhh…

Sequence 3: Girlfriend repeating the same sound, while turning away from boyfriend

in disgust [close-up on girlfriend’s reaction]

Sequence 4 [Speakage]: Start your day right.

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Sequence 5 [Speakage]: With new Right Guard extreme [packshot]

Sequence 6 [Speakage]: a first 48 hour anti-perspirant with antibacterial super-

molecules that fight body odour at its source for 48 hours. [Product/ingredients

frames]

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Sequence 7 [Speakage]: Extreme protection, extreme confidence [shot: boyfriend

with two girlfriends].

Sequence 8 [Speakage]: New Right Guard extreme 48-hour protection against body

odour [packshot/ claims superimpose].

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Multimodality in focus

The dominant modality in this commercial is verbal, supported by visual. The

occasional employment of SFX attains to add a hyperbolic twist to the key elements

of the narrative, such as the exclamation «Aaahhh» in Sequence 2.

The surface discursive structure of the ad text

The commercial is rooted in a functional advertising style. It employs a mixed

emotive/rational route to persuasion about the benefits of the brand, by capitalizing

on background expectancies in a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. Sequences 1-3

focus on the emotional reactions of uncomfort and disgust generated in the face of

sweaty and odorous armpits and the feeling of alienation this experience is likely to

cause between the members of a couple. The narrative strategy follows a typical line,

which focuses on the dramatized portrayal of a problem associated with a particular

consumptive experience, followed by the solution in the context of the brand’s

discourse. The solution is substantiated through appeal to the tangible ingredients

included in Right Guard, which are presented in a literary form (so-called «marketing

ingredients»), in this case with the employment of the lexeme «antibacterial super-

molecules».

The rational benefit stemming from using Right Guard is 48 protection against

body odours, while the emotional benefit rests with counteracting the aforementioned

alienation. This claim is augmented hyperbolically by the employment of the

descriptor «extreme» and by positing a homology between «confidence» and

«protection». Confidence opens up connotatively to the ability to attract females,

which is extended from the key male actor’s regaining his girlfriend’s confidence, who

sits on his left-hand side, to attracting a second female, sitting on his right-hand side.

Inter-textuality, discursive orders and sociocultural analysis in focus

A CDA reading of the sociocultural predicament in which this ad text is

located might suggest that the specific employment of white, heterosexual, middle-

class actors is an indirect legitimation of a dominant stereotype, which excludes other

possible structural couplings among social actors. The same holds for legitimating

tacitly a movie-theater night-out as a dominant entertainment outlet, as against, for

example, a visit to a circus performance.

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Furthermore, in terms of latent presuppositions underpinning the narrative,

females are represented as ex positio gatekeepers of a cultural order that regulates

the contours of a practical ethos, in terms of practices pertaining to caring-for-

oneself, as amply illustrated by Foucault in The History of Sexuality. A biological

phenomenon pertaining to a hormonal imbalance is appropriated culturally, thus

marking the normative requirements that underpin acceptable inter-gender

interaction among social actors.

The dramaturgical effect of a prototypical representation of male hyper-

fertility, as suggested through the pictorial metaphor of potentially copulating with

two, rather than one, females, also challenges a monogamous stereotype and

invests the brand with a complementary promise of promiscuity, thus opening up the

notion of ‘extremity’ polysemically to a sexual dimension. This double entendre

engraved in the lexemes «confidence» and «protection», which functions at the same

time denotatively on the functional level of anti-odour protection and connotatively on

the sociocultural level of sexual promiscuity, attractiveness and success, affords to

invest the brand with the requisite emotional rewards, thus augmenting its relevance.

In terms of discursive stylistics, the brand’s narrative leverages the cinematic

discourse type, while creating a continuity in Sequence 3 between the plot features of

the movie («Aaahhh») and the female actor’s respective reaction. This inter-textual

transfer of manifest plot elements attains to anchor the negative emotional

experience evoked by the brand’s discourse in a familiar discursive order, thus

enhancing its relevance, credibility and appeal.

Similarities and differences amongst the three ad texts

Pursuant to the analysis of the last three sub-sections that were aimed at

laying bare how a brand’s discourse is formed at the three levels of text, discourse

and sociocultural co-text, as well as how a brand’s discourse co-creates a cultural

order through the institution of new moral maxims, let us conclude by comparing and

contrasting the three ad texts across the three levels.

All texts employ rhetorical techniques, but in various forms and with variable

intensity. Metaphorical language is predominant throughout, however the three texts

employ schemes and tropes in different ways and against the background of different

objectives. Old Spice employs antanaclasis as a key scheme in its punchline, Lynx

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employs reversal in order to appropriate a dominant theological discourse, Right

Guard employs hyperbole in order to enhance the dramaturgical experiential effect

accompanying the negative experience of body odours.

Old Spice leverages mythopoetic structures in terms of cosmological models

in order to anchor the brand’s discourse in deeply laden cultural archetypes, and the

same holds for Lynx, which capitalizes on theological discourse in order to effect a

transition from God to Man. Right Guard leverages patterns of social interaction in

order to add credibility to its message.

Inter-textuality and genre cross-fertilization lie at the heart of the three brand

discourses. This inter-textual embededness of the three ad texts, from a Human GDA

point of view, attains to create a hybrid discourse, a third way, where elements from

dominant cultural archetypes are re-semanticized syncretically on a new synthetic

level.

Last, but not least, all three brand discourses either uphold a given

sociocultural order or transform it according to their intended positioning. Old Spice

re-creates the boundaries of social space and freedom of movement by positing the

limits of «outside» as lying within the confines of the brand discourse’s internal

grammar. Lynx rejoices the «death of God» in an act of angelic defiance and

inaugurates the celebration of carnal pleasures. Right Guard augments its brand

promise by appeal to sexual promiscuity.