When the creatives are short of ideas, they resort to sex, because “sex sells”. Yet, very few advertisements really are able to use sex tastefully. The “Slice” commercial for a mango drink, where Katrina Kaif is drinking drops of mango juice in a suggestive manner, the byline being Aamsutra, is a badly done advertisement. Amul Macho is one another such tastelessly done TVC which uses sex to promote undergarments.
Using sexuality to promote perfumes and deodorants is quite common. After many attempts, HUL has managed to come up with a winner of an ad with its recent Axe “Call me” campaign. Business Standard reports that
Ever since Hindustan Unilever launched the 'Call Me' campaign that shows a girl giving her phone number to a boy doused in Axe, the angels (as the girls in the commercials are called) have received 3.5 million calls. And the phones just don't stop ringing these days.
The commercials were launched after an exhaustive study by the Axe Research Lab showed that over 92 per cent of women are willing to give their phone number to a guy they liked in the first meeting. The study found other gems too: 70 per cent of women are willing to give their mobile numbers to men who are 'cute'. The Axe commercials extended the logic further to say that women surely wouldn't mind sharing their numbers with men who also smell good.
The logic worked, and how: Apart from the 3.5 million actual calls received, over 700,000 men have already registered for the wake-up call service within three months of the campaign launch.
The Axe campaign shows that sexuality can be portrayed subtly without any skin-show or awkward postures.
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