Your Advertisement

My ad is for Old Spice products. In this particular advertisement, football player turned actor Isaiah Mustafa is seen in the center of the ad, his body almost completely covered in snow. He carries a cheeky expression and holds Old Spice products in the bottom right side of the picture. The man is in excellent physical shape and is quite handsome. Mustafa’s body has been turned into a mountain scene. Men are attempting to scale him to the top of the “mountain,” where one man has reached “success” by placing a flag at the top. People are skiing and snowboarding off of his body and sledding down it. On the right side we see a ski resort, complete with a woman in a bikini standing in a hot tub. There is a ski lift and what appears to be polar bears pulling a sleigh. On the left side we see that the abominable snowman has appeared out of a cave and is chasing two men. One person is rolling down Mustafa’s shoulder in a giant snowball. At the bottom of the page the viewer sees the words “Make your man one of the freshest smelling places on earth. Old Spice.”

The magazine is originally found in People magazine, but in order to get it online, I searched google images as I do not have a scanner. The advertisement is specifically geared towards women since it says "your man," but the message is also for men, because there is the implication that Old Spice products make a man more desirable.The message to these women is clear. A men can smell as fresh as natural mountain air if he wears Old Spice. Aside from the spoken message, there are plenty of subliminal messages used to sell the product. Using a handsome, well-formed man implies that using the product will make any woman’s man just like the man in the picture. And when one explores further, it is evident that the activities taking place on this “mountain of a man” are “manly” activities, such as mountain climbing, snow boarding, and exploring caves. Perhaps any man could ski off of the very top of a mountain peak if he wore Old Spice. The word “success” at the very top also implies that success can be achieved through the wearing of this product. The great thing about this ad is that it speaks to either gender. Though the advertisement speaks directly to women and their desires, men are also targeted by this advertisement. The idea that a woman wants a man just like this one speaks to the other sex. Men may want their girlfriend to see them as manly and equate them to Mustafa. They may want women to think that they are “manly men” and can do anything this man, or any of the men in the advertisement can do. Maybe a single man could get a girl if he was like this. Could wearing Old Spice be the first step to becoming more of a “man?”