Advertisement and marketing companies use a bunch of different methods to appeal to their audiences in getting people to purchase their products. These companies do research on what it is their specific group is entertained by or what appeals to them and then they implement these characteristics into their advertisements on the television, the newspaper, billboards, and etc. One of these methods I found to be of interest was the way companies used the desire by some to gain ‘sex appeal’ to better reach out to their audiences and making it seem as if one will be more attractive by using the certain products they’re advertising.
In this example, I’ll be focusing on a David Beckham ad for his cologne line, “Intimately Beckham Yours.” This ad shows a picture of a man (Beckham himself) standing next to a woman who is looking at him with a sense of passion. They are standing close together and it even shows the man with his hand laying upon the woman’s chest, and her hand touching his. The woman’s expression is one that gives the impression she wants to be close with the man and that she wants to closer to the man and perhaps intimately involved with him, hence the name of the product including the word ‘intimately.’ The man’s expression gives off a confident feeling, as if he knows he’s attractive and he knows that women want him. He’s looking straight at the camera as if he knows he can have the woman in the picture and any other woman if he wants to as well.
I think this ad is trying to give off the impression that by using this particular cologne, one may attract the attention of a woman or possibly more than one woman. By calling the cologne ‘intimately Beckham yours,” it implies the cologne will create intimacy between the one that uses it and a partner, and possibly make the user as attractive and as desirable as David Beckham. The ad also uses the method in which they use a celebrity to make the product more appealing to the audience. When people see that an attractive celebrity that is well known and that people like is using a specific product, they’re more likely to use that product as well because they want to be like that celebrity and they want to be as desirable and well known as that specific celebrity. That makes people want to go out and spend their money on that product because their favorite actress or athlete is using that product and if they use it then the item must work or it must make one more attractive and desirable to others. That is usually the mindset in people that advertisers go after and tend to exploit in their marketing strategies when it comes to selling their products.
The advertisement here used the characteristics of sex appeal, attraction, and intimacy to kind of appeal to the common man’s interest. Most men would like to attract beautiful women and be seen as sexy like David Beckham. In this case this advertisement appeals to the Men’s Men audience as stated by the book Signs Of Life In The USA. According to this book, the men’s men audience are into looking macho and having women fall all over them and being extremely desirable towards the woman. This ad demonstrates those specific characteristics in which the man has the confident look and the woman all over him and looking at him with desire and want. The ad uses those interests and plays its product on those certain aspects of what most men are willing to spend their money on. A lot of marketing and advertisement companies use this method to appeal to the better man.
Notice this advertisement did not use very much text to convey its message, it has a small symbol in the center that’s noticeable but doesn’t take the attention away from the picture. In this case I think the advertisers were going with a ‘picture is worth a thousand words’ message in their marketing. Maybe they felt the audience would relate more to pictures and symbols instead of text and writing. I think they decided that as men they would see the picture and pay more attention to the woman looking intensely and passionately at the man and notice the message that of the ad through the picture. The audience would probably make a bigger connection with the cologne and David Beckham through a picture rather than a statement. There isn’t any text, however, there is a symbol that includes the name of the product and it is placed in the center above the picture of the product. I think the symbol was placed there to give the audience a hint as to what product was being described by the symbol. The symbol is big enough to read and it is written in a sort of elegance to kind of give the impression that the cologne is an elegant and a formal product, also the way the man and the woman are dressed in the picture might also give off the impression that the product being advertised is meant to be an elegant and special type of cologne. It was meant to be worn by a clean and well-dressed man for a special occasion.
I think this advertisement did a lot to convey its message and stating what exactly they felt was the best characteristics to advertise their product to their specific audience. They gave the impression that their product would make the user sexy and attractive like David Beckham, and that it would provide confidence and create sex appeal and desirability. They did a good job to provide their audience with a clear picture of what one could be like if he buys this specific cologne and increased the credibility by endorsing it with a celebrity, hence, David Beckham. They promoted the concept of intimacy by naming the product ‘intimately Beckham yours’ and including a woman that is considered to be beautiful standing really close to a man and looking to him with desire and passion. This kind of gives off the feel of intimacy and once again, sex appeal. I believe the ad gives off a clear message as to what they’re attempting to sell to the audience and get this specific group of people to spend their money on.
All in all the advertisement company’s use of sex appeal and desirability is a clear method that works to gain an audience of men who would like to be seen as attractive and macho. Most would appreciate being desirable to a bunch of women and the advertisement and marketing companies attempt to play on this specific desire in most men. When a man sees things like this cologne give off an effect such as what was displayed in this particular cologne advertisement, they’re more interested and more likely to buy this specific product. Most men want and desire to be macho and to be seen as desirable so if they see another man gaining this kind of attention from using a cologne; better yet a celebrity, they’re more likely to go spend their money on it. This specific attitude is what advertisement and marketing companies play on and they also have a bunch of other methods they use to appeal to both this men’s men audience and other specific groups they want to sell to. Sex appeal and celebrity endorsement are just a few of their methods they’ve used to get people to purchase their products
