The April 2002 issue of
Maxim begins with a three-page, fold-out
ad for a running
shoe. On each page, there is an image with a
letter. The first page depicts the shirtless
torso of a
sweaty man, running and wearing a "
Just do it" face, and a large "a". The second page shows the
shoe hitting the
pavement and a "+ b". And finally, on the third page, a gorgeous
blond in a leopard bikini, highlights and all with an "=c" completing the
equation.
a + b = c
Okay. I failed
high school algebra twice, but this one is simple enough. Let's assume, because it's the most
obvious choice, that these
variables are
substitutions for the
images on their
respective pages. In this case, the
equation becomes:
sweaty man + sports shoe = babe in leopard bikini
From this, you could garner a
wealth of meaning. Since the most obvious answer, in this case, is the most
boring, let's first take a look at the
alternatives:
Alchemy: Take a
sweaty man, add a neat sports
shoe, mix well, and you can make a hot woman.
Metamorphosis: If you are a
sweaty man and you get those shoes, you will become a hot
babe in a leopard
bikini.
The obvious intent: Okay. The designers of this ad are trying to say, "Wear these
shoes, and the
girl is yours."
Everyone knows that sex sells. The
people who made this
advertisement know it, and they want you to know they know it. The
designers wanted the
man viewing this ad to feel a sort of
tacit comradery with them. "Yeah. That's right. We're selling shoes with sex, and you know it, so we're not gonna kid around with you. Here's the
shoe. Here's the
babe." (
Maxim is a men's
magazine, thus we can expect the ads to be targeted at men, of course.)
This sort of
unspoken "something-in-common" feeling is very
prevalent in modern men's
magazines, as well as in women's. They basically say, "People of the opposite
sex are
nuts, aren't they? Yeah. We know how you
feel." Although it seems
innocent, it is
destructive in that it reinforces a gap between two different peoples, in this case
men and
women, in the interest of selling a
product. (Making
money.)
There are many other interesting
aspects of this ad. Let's go from left to right. The
sweaty man is set in a
composition intended to make him look
powerful. The
shot is taken from a lower
angle, so we, the
viewers, are looking up at him, he is
dominating us. He is
slender and
muscular, with
airbrushed highlights for
emphasis. The advertisers have opened by creating a
subconscious feeling of
insecurity, a
need, in
vulnerable readers, they've opened up a
hole, created a
conflict.
On the next page comes the
shoe. The
Product. The product bridges the gap between the
insecurities created by the first
image and the
solution on the
final page.
The second
image is composed of the shoe, a sea of
pavement and a flexed calf
muscle. The
shoe is the only thing in
focus, our eyes are
immediately drawn to it. The man wearing the shoe has no socks on, which reinforces the
perception of him as
wild and
free. Thus our
subconscious perceives
liberation from the everyday
annoyance of
restrictive garb like
socks. Now the
advertiser has invoked a sense of freedom from day-to-day
tedium and
tied it
directly to the
product.
There is another image on the third page, to the right of the shoe and smaller. A couple of
tree trunks run up the page
vertically, shutting it off from the
final page. Tree trunks are hard
wood, the advertisers have created the
illusion of a
barrier. Scratched into the tree trunks are
jagged lines, making it seem all the more
fearsome.
Across the bottom half of the first two pages is a plain blue field, with the "a + b" printed on them, another
barrier. The
blue field
terminates at the same point the trees do.
So far we have the insecurity, and the shoe. The shoe takes us through a barrier, and we have the woman. We've now made it all the way through with the shoe. All along,
subversive imagery has
reinforced the simple algebra, "a + b = c".
So then we have what is
portrayed by this ad as the
prize, the woman. She's kneeling on a
bed in what looks like an RV. Her
lips are
parted in a look of
subtle fascination. The final
image is tinted more on the
blue side, creating a feeling of calm, and it matches the blue field which led up to it, and the
color of the
pavement engulfing the
shoe in the second
image.
Something else which I didn't notice until looking at the ad for the third time...The
girl seems to be looking somewhere off the frame in the final pic. What's she looking at you say? She's looking right at the
shoe.
(!)
The shoe is
important to her.
They make no secret of what they're trying to say.
Man has
shoe, man gets
sexy leopard bikini
woman, man lives
happily ever after. They show it
directly, but the image is a lot
stronger and less
honest when you examine the persuasive imagery behind the "a+b=c".
To the shoe
company, the
variables stand for:
sucker +
shoe =
MONEY MONEY MONEY