You’ve probably seen the commercials for Axe body spray—I think that means deodorant, but I’m not exactly sure—where use of the product results in random women accosting you. I thought that they were well targeted and moderately clever, but they’ve outdone themselves with the latest creation.
One of the guys at work brought in a copy of Axe’s new guide entitled Coping With All the Ladies: The Axe Wearer’s Handbook. It’s a mock book along the lines of The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook except that it features how-tos for men who suddenly find themselves overrun with women. I know that it made the rounds in my department and even brought a chuckle to a guy who’s completely inured to advertising.
There’s long been talk about how the future of commercials is making them more clever so people will want to watch them or embedding them into the shows themselves so people can’t fast-forward through them, but I think that this sort of marketing tool is very effective. I don’t know how commercials can get any better—the top commercials, obviously—without devolving into the Calvin-Klein, what-the-hell-is-this-commercial-even-for style.