Chris Rectenwald Professor Bain-Conkin Writing and Rhetoric 16 October 2013 Clean Your Balls Charles Darwin once

said that the world is one competition. The earth is the battlefield and the task is to survive. The key to survival is the ability to reproduce. Many species have gone extinct over the years because of this inability. In fact billions of species that walked this earth are now extinct. However companies have realized that they need to stop this doom for the human race and have taken action. One of those companies is Axe. With their strong scents of masculinity, Axe sells male grooming products with a purpose of helping males attract women. In their commercial Clean Your Balls Axe takes a stand to help the male population. Although the ad is lacks seriousness, the commercials use of ethos, logos, and pathos persuade many people to switch to using AXE products, which creates a closer connection to its audience, thus becoming well integrated into the popular culture. To start off, ethos is the credibility and the reputation that the speaker presenting that information has. Basically it is the traits that the speaker which makes them convincing or not. In regards to these AXE commercial, young men featured in the commercial seemed genuinely interested in the product, so therefore their intended audience was young men. However, the ad takes a humorous route for the conventional way of advertising with their use of metaphors. The product

they are selling is the Axe Detailer, which helps males cleans area of their bodies that are metaphorically depicted as sports balls. In order to establish ethos, the ad features two spokespersons (Denese Saintclaire and Monica Blake), both gorgeous women. By nature men aspire for the most attractive woman, so if the two women say that they like it when men use the Axe Detailer, the men will listen. So, the men are left thinking Because these beautiful women love when my man parts are clean, I want to purchase the detailer; so I can be clean and please women. In sum, this commercial creates ethos by having two beautiful women host the ad to persuade men to think buying the Axe Detailer will increase their chances to attract women. Besides the spokespersons establishing their own ethos, they also use logos, the appeal to the audience based on logic and reason, to improve the validity of the product. Before using the Axe Detailer to clean the balls, they had to devalue any ordinary scrubber. They did this by first using the ordinary scrubber to clean the ball. The scrubber failed to clean the ball, so they then used the Axe Detailer to show that the Axe Detailer significantly cleans the ball better than the ordinary scrubber. Then, the spokespersons called up and cleaned numerous people from the crowds balls of all different shapes and sizes. All in all, this commercial effectively portrays the Axe Detailer as the only product that can sufficiently clean a mans body. Another use logos, though subtle but effective, is after the spokespersons clean the balls to show that the Axe Detailer works better than the ordinary scrubber. They then call to the crowd to clean more balls. One man volunteers first. He shows the crowd his dirty (tennis) balls. The audience is shocked and disgusted,

and the camera zooms to a womans displeasured face. The man then tosses his balls to one of the spokespersons, Monica Blake, to help clean his dirty (tennis) balls. She cleaned his balls and the crowd erupted in applause. After a few more times of Monica cleaning a mans balls from the crowd, the camera zooms back upon the face of the woman previously shown before Monica cleaned the balls. This time her face, instead of showing disgust, shows elation. The change in the womans face depicts the advertisers logic: If you use Axe Detailer, then women will be happy. With that, that ad points out that by using any different scrubber to clean ones balls, women will not be pleased, and that every male needs to purchase the Axe Detailer to fulfill womans expectations. The biggest reason for the commercials success, however, is the usage of pathos. Pathos is the ability to appeal to the audience through emotion, which the commercial effectively executes. While Axe took an unconventional approach to the commercial, its crude humor ultimately helps sell the products. The commercial realizes that its main consumers are young adults, so the commercial several sexual innuendos that make the viewer giggle. For instance, Monica Blake hands Denese Saintclare a pair of golf balls after cleaning them. The camera then zooms onto her hand while she cradles the balls gracefully for an absurd amount of time. The camera then shows her face again, showing the astonishment on her face because of how clean the balls have become. After cleaning the golf balls, Monica calls for more participants. One person responds that he had dirty (tennis) balls and needs them clean, while another asks if he can get his ball sack (of soccer balls) cleaned. And to top it all off, while Monica cleans the balls upon request, the camera focuses on an

elderly lady that is overjoyed at the sight of young mens clean balls. This obscene humor in the commercial helps the intended viewer remember the commercial. Because of this crude humor, the viewer may YouTube it to view it again. In fact this commercials top listing on YouTube has accumulated over 3 million views, so the young adult population that rules the Internet loves the video. Although these 3 million viewers may never buy the Axe Detailer, the evidence that the ad was able to cling to the viewer is important. So, through its effective use of rhetorical techniques, the Axe Commercial Clean Your Balls persuades the viewers that the Axe Detailer is a covetable key to a womans pleasure. Also, critiquing Axes commercial through its use of ethos, logos, and pathos, enables one to see the message that the ad is trying to address. The male is portrayed as a stereotypical male that lacks proper hygiene, which women find repulsive. However, the commercial shows men that the Axe Detailer will help please women, so the lingering death of the human race can be put on hold. All in all, even though using the Axe Detailer may not mean that women will be attracted to them, the vast amount of rhetoric in the ad persuades young men to purchase it.