Company - Unilever
Product - Men's Fragrance
Brand - Lynx (US - Axe)
Agency - Bartle Bogle Hegarty
The Advert. A female English language teacher is teaching an elementary language's class. The class is populated by a mixture of people from non-English speaking backgrounds, races and cultures. She holds up a board with a boat drawn on it.
"Boat" she says. "Boat" the class answers in unison.
She holds up a picture of a cat.
"Cat".
"Cat" the class answers.
A young man enters the classroom, The teacher inhales his musk dreamily, turns towards him, and growls sexily
"Bom Chika Wow Wow".
The class, in unison chant "Bom Chika Wow Wow", even though she still holds up the picture of the cat.
The teacher looks slightly embarrased. The kid looks like he could soon be terrified.
Strapline: Improved Fragrances from Lynx. With added Bom Chicka Wow Wow.
Bird was once visited by her cousin Tom and two of his friends. They were all sixteen years old, and lived in her flat in Bournemouth for three weeks. They eschewed Bird's culinary delights, preferring to live on a diet of Pot Noodles and Cider.
And they did not bathe or shower, but did spray on vast amounts of Lynx to hide the stench of whatever it is that young men smell of. Which in their case was rotting pieces of pot noodle and semen, after Bird lent them some of her porn stash.
And essentially, this is what is known as 'The Lynx Effect'. To make young adolescents smell better than an old sock which is used to scrape jism off of a young man's belly after a good tumble to a copy of 'Razzle - Soccer Mom's edition No. 32'.
Lynx is a product which, lets face it, is something no-one but very elderly aunts buy boys for birthdays and Xmas. And truth is is that Unilever realise that most parents bringing up teenagers these days grew up with classic fragrances like Paco Rabanne, Quorum, Jazz and Iceberg. So Mum and Dad ain't gonna be buying the youngsters Old Spice or Aramis, unless they have fallen on grave misfortune and had to sell a kidney.
So the issue that BBH have to deal, the message they have to sell, is that Lynx is a righteous after-shave (or after having a wash and looking for the first signs of stubble in most cases) for the male yoof.
'Wassat you is wearing?" shall say Yoof one, to his mate.
"None of your beeswax, fuckface, but watch the beeyatches line up to propose some serious heavy petting, and maybe even a finger" will say his be-Lynxed compadre.
This is the scenario BBH are hoping for.
Poor bastards.
See, the sell is that no matter what you look like in those ridiculously low-slung jeans and Hannah Barbera cartoon boxers; you got Lynx on, the babes will want your joy juice.
It don't matter what time of day, what situation, what country...it's the elixir that will fix you, once applied with relish.
And so do the makers of Lynx apply one of the first disappointments of youth. There are many, but this is one of the first.
Applying too much Lynx in the hope that it will attract the mother of the kid who is fifteen years old and lives opposite you and still wets the bed AND has the same can of Lynx in his room, is one such let down.
Finding out most lesbians do not look like they do in those DVD's that Dad hides behind the Plasma, but instead look like Polish shipyard workers is another.
BBH are trying to up the sex stakes here, but it's almost laughably insulting to women, and not only towards seemingly intelligent and vivacious, virile women, but to ALL women. There is clearly a large woman in the class. I'm unsure what country she is from, but she is definitely a large woman, of colour, maybe from Mozambique or somesuch nation.
But when the kid walks in, does she get the Lynx effect? Apparently not. Large women over fifty are excluded from this delight. Maybe he prefers the more mature woman. Maybe that's why he's wearing Lynx.
What about gay males, you ask? This is a large class: a decent cross-section of cultures and races. And sexualties as well, I would suggest.
Not one gay male stands and thrust his hips out as the teacher does. The kid looks freaked: maybe he is at a sexual crossroads, in dilemma. Maybe his parents force him to wear Lynx in an attempt to deny his obvious homosexual tendencies.
The way I see it, BBH have pitched this advert primarily at very young men, probably between 18 and 24, who desire fucking their tutors or best-friend's mother or step-mother, and figure that spraying yourself with chemicals in order to become a mythical warrior capable of taming any wild woman is the appropriate short-cut to the pubic triangle of their wet dreams.
The teacher is not bad, but frankly, I reckon BBH would really have wanted her to have been teaching a class of fourteen year old males in school uniform. That would have made more commercial sense, even if it does purport to promote child molestation. And, let's be honest, no kid over the age of sixteen would ever wear Lynx, to the point that I figure that this advert should not have been shown at nine in the evening, but rather than just before the childrens watershed.
In fact, a great idea would be showing Po finding a can of Lynx in a bin. He sprays himself and there ensues an all-in strap-on TellyTubby orgy, with Tinky-Winky as head sow,
I actually don't mind this advert too much, because it made me reminisce of products such as Brut ('Splash it on all over") and Kouros. But it's a huge mistake pitching this to the 18-24 market. These guys will maybe buy one can, work out in ain't the panacea for virginity and dump it like last year's Benchwear. In fact, it's a tad tragic, or would be if it wasn't for the fact that most kids are way more cluey about materialism and brands these days.
However, like bullying, puberty and stealing your Mother's uppers, wearing Lynx is a passage of youth that most males will probably have to deal with at some time before they are old enough to vote.
This advert does not insult it's potential market, but it is a waste of money. Tying Lynx into products like X-Box and PS would have been far more lucrative and rewarding.
Now there's a concept...
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