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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.