Strong, Man

Aimed at Guys, Axe Really Smells -- Like Money

Fragrances are a personal thing, and so one man's sweet aroma is another man's stench. Thus every effort will be made not to render too cruel a judgment upon Axe, the deodorant body spray that arrived on these shores from Europe and proceeded to leave a pungent cloud in bathrooms and locker rooms around the country.

If you are not a young Lothario in the brand's 18-to-24-year-old target audience or an adolescent boy hungry for his first sniff of manhood, or a young woman fending off their advances, then in all likelihood you are unaware that Voodoo is one of Axe's eight different scents and no longer simply a religion of spirits and fetishes. Voodoo is vaguely sweaty, somewhat powdery and reminiscent of the aroma that wafted off your grandmother's dressing table. A week after it was spritzed on a piece of white note paper, it's as odorous as ever.

Apparently boys like that.

Axe's presence has become unavoidable. It has become a dominant brand in the men's deodorant market. It has inspired imitators. It cannot be ignored.

The Axe brand is owned by Unilever, the mammoth international consumer products company that produces everything from Hellmann's mayonnaise and Slim-Fast shakes to Surf laundry detergent. A version of Axe, under the brand name Lynx, was launched in France in 1983 and was soon perfuming much of Europe and Latin America. Axe was introduced in the United States in 2002, much to the chagrin of anyone with olfactory memories of a 1980s dance club after the lights came up and everyone stopped doing the cabbage patch.

Axe is not merely a deodorant meant to be rolled on sparingly under the arms. It is not simply a cologne meant to be dabbed behind the ears, on the wrists and other pulse points. The rise of Axe signals the birth of a new category in men's grooming: body deodorant. Axe is a cologne with stink-prevention properties.

It is meant to be sprayed all over the body with the exuberance that might be used to apply Deep Woods Off!, and anecdotal evidence suggests that young men -- particularly those in Generation Junior High -- have been dutifully following the package instructions: "Just hold can 6 inches from your body and spray all over, including your chest, neck, underarms -- anywhere you want to smell great." Indeed, some boys must want to smell really, really great. From about 50 yards away.

Over the course of two years, Unilever has spent more than $100 million advertising Axe, according to the trade journal Advertising Age. The message of that advertising has essentially focused on one idea: Wear Axe, get the girls. Not just one girl, but many, many girls. In the desperately optimistic tradition of Hai Karate commercials or Tone Loc's "Funky Cold Medina," Axe ads suggest that if a guy spritzes on a lot of Voodoo, priced at $4.99 for a four-ounce can, he will attract a stampede of women. He will get a little action. Because there is nothing like playing to a young man's insecurities when it comes to the ladies, Axe has been a tremendous success.

"Girls want guys to smell clean and be groomed. The point is [guys] feel more confident," says Kevin George, Unilever's director of marketing for U.S. deodorants. Axe "provides them with the confidence to go out and ask a girl for her phone number, to get those digits."

George has been part of the Axe team since its U.S. launch. He speaks with a permanent chuckle embedded in his voice, but without a hint of irony. He tends to repeat certain phrases for emphasis and clarity, and there is not a shred of self-doubt as he boils down the "universal truth" about men: They want to meet "girls, girls, girls."

To market Axe, street teams went to college campuses and handed out thong underwear, printed with an Axe Web address, to young men. Thongs were surreptitiously slipped into dryers at nearby laundromats -- hopefully to be found by single, young men and not their jealous girlfriends. Axe has sponsored singles parties. In 2003, the company created a cartoon armpit with feet -- a sort of Rorschach test of sexual innuendo -- that women in the ads cozied up to.

There are advertisements on the brand's Web site in which a woman's bare back is imprinted with the shape of a hanger or an elevator key pad or a steering wheel or anything else she might have been smashed up against during spontaneous snuggling, canoodling or going-all-the-way. The tag line: It can happen anywhere. The Axe Effect.