Eric PrattEnglish 1010Tues-Thurs11/16/2010

Smell Like a Man

This advertisement by Old Spice depicts that anyone who uses Old Spice body wash will

be like a man; the same kind of man advertising Old Spice. It’s an argument by authority in that

you can be like this guy if you use Old Spice. Directed at men who want to be manly, this

advertisement posts the argument that any other body wash used would make one smell inferior.

What manly man wants to be inferior to another? Thus we must all buy Old Spice to be manlier

than the other.

This advertisement is awesomely ridiculous in the fact that he’s riding a horse made of

suds. The only thing that makes any sense concerning this product is the fact that the product is

generally used in the bathroom. All other aspects of what’s in the advertisement depict the

unlikely to happen, like the foamy horse, for example. It came out of entertainment weekly

magazine which is to tell us that they’re putting their advertisement in the right place,

somewhere where people like to be entertained. This ad is very entertaining. The grin on his

face tells me he knows how to handle his soap and that he’s in charge. The beautiful lady on the

side, there, is a great addendum to the advertisement to help with the notion that you’re not a

man without a woman and you’re not a man unless you’re able to be a cowboy in the bathroom.

All of these factors in the advertisement are to tell everyone what makes a man. There’s a lot of

emotion in this advertisement to demonstrate the persuasive appeal of pathos.

You can see the evidence in this ad as to how manly one can be if only they used Old

Spice. Who wouldn’t want to be this man, having a party in his bathroom, being ogled by this

young lady? This makes me want to go buy Old Spice right now just by looking at the facts.

The facts are that, for one, the wording right under the man on the horse says, “Make sure your

man smells like a man,” and two, that there’s already a lady right there and he’s not even done

cleaning himself. All the facts state very clearly that, for sure, this is the body wash for me.

Although it’s a body wash for manly men, you can see the context of the text underneath

the manly man in the bath tub, “Make sure your man smells like a man,” is directed more to

women who would like good smelling man. With only 8 words on paper the ad tells us that he’s

talking to women behind the backs of their men that men need to fix their scent if they’re not

already using Old Spice. The men that read this and realize that he’s talking to their women

don’t want to be corrected because that would make them inferior. So, to be more manly, the

manly men who read this advertisement want to go get it before their told to and the men that

don’t read it, to compensate for being inferior for being told to get it, buy it right away. This

advertisement gives the ultimate example of addressing both sides of the issue to get the ultimate

result of selling their product. Men buy it because they’re told to buy it and because they don’t

want to be told to buy it. The result of not being told to buy it gives the assurance that the manly

man made the right choice as you can see by the smirk on this man’s face on the advertisement.

I give credibility to the truthfulness of the ad because of the man. He’s all the proof I

need that it works. I’ll obviously be more satisfied if I use it, for it’s logical that if he’s happy,

then I’ll be happy. It’s true that you’ll never be a man unless you smell like a man and this ad is

all the proof you need of that. Let’s all get Old Spice!