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Micaela Martinez
Ashley Humphries
ENC 1101
1 Apr 2015
How AXE Has Shaped Societys View of Beauty
Companies use advertisements to persuade people to buy their products by using different
persuasive techniques. One technique that has been used increasingly throughout the years is the
sexualization of advertisements. Sexualization is making something sexual in character or
quality. Hundreds of companies use sexualization to grasp the consumers attention, especially
when trying to focus on one specific audience, the target audience. One major company that uses
sexualization in their advertisements to sell their product is AXE.
AXE is a brand of male grooming products including daily fragrance sprays, deodorants, antiperspirants, shower gels, shampoos, and styling products. Unilever, a multi-billion dollar,
multinational consumer goods company, first introduced it in France in 1983. In 2002, after
AXEs success in European and Latin American countries, Unilever introduced AXE to the
United States. The AXE brand gets all their sales by making men believe that the products are so
good, women will come running to them; something they call The AXE Effect. In technical
terms, the Axe Effect is the internationally recognized name for the increased attention AXEwearing males receive from eager, and attractive female pursuers (THE AXE EFFECT
FAQ). AXE oversexualizes and objectifies women in all their advertisements, while also using
societys version of a beautiful woman: tall, slim, and flawless. Though the commercials are

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exaggerated and contain sexual humor most of the time, they are still degrading to women all
around the world.
Throughout the years, AXEs advertisements have increasingly gotten more sexual. Although
they are just advertisements to sell the product, these advertisements have also had an effect on
society, selling the image of what beauty is. In their eyes, beauty is an extremely thin woman
with flawless skin, who is seen merely as a sexual object.
Not only has societys opinion of beautiful women drastically changed throughout the years,
but womens view of themselves has changed as well. Negative body image has been an
increasing and recurring topic among women these days. Negative body image is a distorted
perception of size or shape, as well as more global feelings of shame, awkwardness, and anxiety
about the body. People with negative body image tend to feel that their size or shape is a sign of
personal failure, and that it is a very important indicator of worth (Body Image). Negative
body image is the result of society telling us what is beautiful and what is not. Though it should
not matter what people perceive to be beautiful, the unfortunate truth is that it does. People have
developed the image of beauty to be such a cookie cutter type formula, but the truth of the matter
is that everyone is beautiful in their own way. Beauty is not just black and white, but instead, is
the gradient in between.
From the immense selection of AXE advertisements to choose from, I chose to use one
specific advertisement that is a perfect example on how the brand sexualizes and specifies what
hot women should look like to sell their product. This ad shows the progression of women
from 1890, 1950, and 2011 with the headline girls are getting hotter. The first picture is
depicting a woman in the 1890s. The girl is a fuller, yet still beautiful, woman wearing a one
piece bathing suit covering her belly and thighs. The next picture features a woman in the 1950s;

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a beautiful woman who happens to be thinner than the woman in the previous picture, and
instead, is wearing a two piece bathing suit, exposing a small section of her midriff. The last
picture, based in 2011, features an extremely thin woman wearing a two-piece bathing suit so
small that it barely covers any of her private parts. Her stance portraying a much more
provocative feel than that of the other two women. The basis of this advertisement in particular is
the fact that girls are getting hotter as time passes and men cannot seem to keep their cool so
they should buy the new AXE products, Black Chill and Cool Metal, to help them keep their
cool.
This advertisement strategy works because of the target audience of AXE products: white,
heterosexual men, ages 18-24 (Aleman), who want this type of attention from women. For this
reason, I specified that AXE used the term girls are getting hotter because it is directed towards
a younger audience, so younger women are used in the advertisements. The men that are targeted
are those who will do anything to get a girl, men that already get girls but think that using this
product will increase the chance of getting a girl, and the man who gets a confidence boost
thinking that by wearing AXE, he will be like the guys in the advertisements. This sex sells
form of advertising has been a great contributor to the growth of the company. However, guys
probably dont go to the store and think Im going to buy AXE because it will help me get laid.
Instead, men probably tend to choose AXE products because of the image of a cool guy that
the commercials and advertisements tend to use.
Though these strategies have clearly had a positive effect for the company, the effects on
society have not been as positive. The view on society that these commercials have created is one
in specific. Not only has the sexualization of women in these commercials created women to be
solely looked at as sexual objects, but the type of women used has also contributed to the

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creation of societys image of what a beautiful woman looks like. Over the years, the image of
women and beauty has been changing for the worst. The image portrayed in AXE commercials
and advertisements is one of brainless objects who solely exist to please men.
To change and fix society and the audiences view of women, there needs to be a change in
the advertising. Changing the advertisement to include a wider range of beautiful women, for
example, a fuller, rounder woman wearing a full bathing suit, is one way to alter the image of
what beauty has evolved to be over the years. The purpose of the woman wearing a full bathing
suit is to desexualize the ad a bit, rather than having an almost naked woman. However,
including voluptuous women into the ads, does not mean that thinner women arent beautiful as
well. The matter of the fact is that there needs to be a balance between the two; its not right to
just put thin women as the face of the company, but its just the same with bigger women. The
solution is to include both, and everyone in between as well. Furthermore, not only can we
change the body image of a beautiful woman, but we can also include other races in the new
image of a beautiful woman. Looking through all the AXE commercials and advertisements, I
noticed there are little to non African American women featured. With these changes, AXE can
still use the phrase that girls are getting hotter, but will now be giving a wider range as to what
people perceive to be hot or beautiful. This will help alter peoples view of what beautiful
women look like, erasing the idea that only skinny women are beautiful women.
By incorporating these changes to the image of women in the ad, I hope to change the view of
women and beauty, creating a new and more achievable standard of beauty, rather than beauty
being defined as one specific woman with one specific body type and race. The rationale of
replacing the skinny model type woman that is featured on the original advertisement with
several women of different sizes and races is to demonstrate that one does not have to look like a

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size zero model to be a beautiful human being. This type of change will not only change mens
view of what female beauty is, but hopefully will also change how women view themselves. I
also hope to ignite some body positivity among women all over the world, rather than having a
negative body image. Body positivity is a very important thing, not only for women but for men
too. Before anyone can love you, you have to learn to love yourself, and by practicing body
positivity, that is one place to start. Learning to love your body as it is, is the ultimate goal.
The audience in the anti-advertisement created is similar to the audience that the original ad is
intended for: heterosexual men, though the age difference might change from incorporating
thicker women and women of different races. Moreover, there will probably be a new audience
of men of other races as well, not just white males.
Furthermore, the new advertisement is just as persuasive or maybe even more persuasive.
This is a result of incorporating women with different body types and races, grasping the
attention of more men, while also depicting a society of different, yet still beautiful, women,
instead of just one type of women. The sex appeal is still there, so men will still see women as
sexual objects to an extent, but women will always have a sex appeal and at least the problem of
the image of what a beautiful woman looks like has been changed to fit a greater portion of
todays society.
In this specific advertisement I did not want to change the theme of bathing suits, putting a
constraint in trying to make the advertisement less sexualized. However, this particular
advertisement is not as sexual as other AXE advertisements have been. Though the women are
seen as something men cant resist, in this ad, the women arent chasing the AXE-wearer
everywhere. Instead, the roles are switched and women are seen as irresistible to men, which is
why they need to buy the new AXE spray in order to keep their cool around women. Moreover, I

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would place this ad somewhere where both men and women would be able to see it, seeing the
new and improved image of the irresistible woman for men, in hopes that both men and women
will realize the true beauty in every woman.
AXE, being a company that gets most, if not all, their sales from the sexualization and
supposed effect of their products, needs to change their way of advertising their product. These
advertisements indirectly promote negative body image by using one specific type of woman as
the mascot for the company. The type of woman used in all the AXE advertisements and
commercials is a flawless, size zero type model. Instead, this company should strive to change
the image of what society perceives to be true beauty by changing their ads to fit a wider range
of women. Incorporating women with different body types, and of different races, will help in
aiding the change in societys perception of beauty.

Aleman, Paloma. "The Axe Effect." Media Literacy Project. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2015.
"Body Image." Brown University Health Promotion. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.
"THE AXE EFFECT - FAQ." THE AXE EFFECT. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2015.