According to “Packaged Facts,” a market research firm, sales of grooming products for adolescent boys have drastically increased in recent years. According to the company’s data, the sale of grooming products to boys between the ages of eight and nineteen is a business that generates about 1.9 billion dollars in annual sales worldwide (Hoffman 1). In her New York Times article, “Masculinity in a Spray Can,” Jan Hoffman discusses the current trends in the advertising of deodorants and body washes for boys aged nine to fourteen. The information in the article confirms what Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright point out in Practices of Looking:An Introduction to Visual Culture, that advertisers are using teenage websites and blogs to create and court specific classes of consumers. In Hoffman’s article, the consumers are boys, ages eight to twelve years old, a group which she refers to as “tweens.” According to Hoffman, researchers have discovered that tween males, between the ages of eight to twelve, spend a significant amount of money on toiletries, such as deodorants and colognes, that sell for less than seven dollars.
According to Kit Yarrow, a professor of Psychology and Marketing at Golden Gate College, “…more insecurity equals more product need equals more opportunity for marketers to sell their products,” (Hoffman 8). As a result, Old Spice advertises its “Swagger” line, Anthony’s offers its body essentials called “Energy,” “Strength,” “Spirit,” “Courage,” and Abercrombie & Fitch advertises its cologne named “Fierce” on websites frequented by young boys and teenagers. These products are advertised on social networking and web gaming sites by using endorsements by hip hop stars, pro athletes and extreme sports dare-devils. Each bottle of cologne signifies and exemplifies a characteristic. There is “Instinct from Axe,” “Swagger,” made by Old Spice, “Magnetic Attraction Enhancing Body Wash,” produced by Dial. Ten year olds are copying fourteen year olds in their efforts to smell good and be appealing to the opposite sex. To promote their products, marketers advertise on interactive webs sites creating communities of fans. Tag has a page on Facebook, Axe has an avatar in “Dan,’ a Play Station game, Swagger sponsors X-box competitions, and Dial offers advice to adolescents from “sexperts.” The different brands create downloadable, apps, have advergames on websites, and produce commercials just for YouTube. YouTube is also filled with commercials made by teenage boys themselves, who often personally review the products offered. As “Masculinity In A Spray Can” and Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture indicate, youth culture uses websites, social networking, and blogs as links to friends and interests; they create networks about their style choices and social concerns (Sturken and Cartwright 89).
As the textbook points out, cultural meaning is highly fluid. It is always changing as the result of the complex interactions of objects and people. Companies take traditional products, in this case colognes and deodorants, and give their uses new meaning by associating them with something, or someone, cool For example, Old Spice features Rap star LL Cool J as a nerd in school who is transformed into someone cool and fabulous after applying Old Spice’s “Swagger.” Old Spice is a traditional after-shave, used by older men, not a product one would ordinarily associate with a hip young rap star. As Sturken and Cartwright suggest, advertisers and teenagers reorder and reuse images in different ways and in this manner reorder every day life.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/fashion/31smell.html?ref=fashion
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