So here’s the second men’s body care commercial in a row…
Same product. Same target consumer. A slightly less abrasive approach, but all in all, I’d say it’s the same pitch. Yes, I know that Axe is PRO MASCULINITY and Dove is the Beauty in every woman, but I’m telling you it’s all the same.
Axe says be a man and pick up girls. In Dove’s new Men+Care product they use essentially the same approach; Dove tells the tale of Man’s “Journey to Comfort.” Now there’s a few similarities in the two campaigns… The messages are the same in the end, with a little twist to differentiate the two ads. Dove’s tag at the end of this commercial is “Be comfortable in your own skin.” Absolutely, this is a great tag that’s fairly witty, to the point and a good moral lesson for all types of people. Although the goal isn’t even close to identical to any of Axe’s campaigns, it still leads me to conclude the same thing from both ads…be comfortable as yourself, attract others.
Anyways, the truth is I don’t know how much I respect either of these campaigns. And even more, I’m a little surprised to see a campaign from Dove actually telling Men how to live their lives. After all, don’t they explicitly and strongly encourage women to be individuals with high self-confidence no matter how they are? But who can blame them with the kind of stuff Axe puts out on a regular basis. I guess that Unilever’s counterparts have to play off eachother for the best marketing result—which obviously is far and beyond most others in their industry.
In case you were wondering, the similarities don’t end at the psychological stuff. Compare Axe’s detailer with the scrubby recently released by Dove. So even if some men want to get away from the stereotype Axe portrays, they can’t really run too far other than just from the colour pallet.
