You are now entering Ad Space, a realm of commercials, brought before us so we might examine how they work, and discuss why we both love and hate them so. So it is written …

Doing something a bit different this week. We’re taking a look at two commercials that (despite being made by different companies, in different eras, for different sorts of products) use a remarkably similar sales pitch – but it’s the ways they differ that are truly revealing.

First is this commercial from the 2000’s, advertising Tag body spray:

It’s one of many that Tag made ripping off the Axe body spray commercials – the pitch being that their body spray is such an aphrodisiac, women will become lust-crazed maniacs trying to jump your bones at every opportunity. Tag’s twist on the formula was to present cases where you wouldn’t want such attention, giving people a “warning” about how dangerously effective their body spray is.

Some may take issue with an ad portraying women as such easily swayed creatures, but to me it seems harmless enough. It’s just typical commercial hyperbole, exaggerating the supposed effectiveness of the product to ludicrous extremes.

I hadn’t thought about this ad in ages, until I came across another ad both like it and unlike it in many ways – this commercial from the 80’s, promoting Sexy Legs pantyhose:

It’s the same basic pitch: our product’s so good at attracting the opposite sex, you might wanna be careful where and when you wear it. But that pitch feels so very different coming out of this ad.

Part of that, I realize, is due to the social context we view it from. We’ve been brought up to view women making crass come-ons to men as far more harmless than men doing the same to women – simply because the genders have been flipped around, people are going to view this ad differently.

But you can’t pin it all on that. Because here’s the thing: one ad may be targeted at men, and the other at women, but both are very much built on the Male Gaze.

The Tag ad is told from the perspective of an ordinary looking guy, with the women framed in a sexualized manner. And that makes sense in this context, because it’s an ad aimed at men who want help attracting women.

Meanwhile, the Sexy Legs ad … is also told from the perspective of some ordinary looking guys, with the woman framed in a sexualized manner. The target audience may be women who want help attracting men, but the ad makes no effort to present the men as the sort you’d want to attract – it’s too busy drooling over the lady who represents their customers.

But I think what really sets these ads apart is the voiceovers.

The voiceover at the end of the Tag ad, delivered in a masculine voice, gives the faux-warning about not wearing Tag when you don’t want female attention. This is clearly meant as a joke, a laugh shared between advertiser and audience.

The voiceover in the Sexy Legs gives the same sort of warning, not to wear Sexy Legs unless you’re sure you want male attention. But despite being meant for the women in the audience, this voiceover is delivered in a masculine voice, too, and in such a tone that the target of the joke shifts.

The joke in the Tag voiceover is that they’re exaggerating the “dangers” of the body spray – they’re laughing at themselves, so that they and the viewers can laugh together. But the joke in the Sexy Legs voiceover, it’s not directed inward – it’s pointed at “the type of girl who doesn’t like being noticed” and is “in the least bit embarrassed about being admired”, with the obvious implication that you’re not one of those types of girls, right?

Even when it’s their job to appeal to women, when millions of dollars depend on speaking to women in a way they’ll appreciate, the folks at Sexy Legs can’t seem to help turning their ad into a male stroke fantasy that talks down to the women in the audience.

Still, it’s at least better than the ad for their spinoff product, Sexy Nix: