This commercial, and others like it, have always really amused me a lot, because rather than making the stuff look cool and desirable, they make it look boring. Seriously, look at the model/actor’s expression in this ad: he looks completely bored, and mad that he’s bored to boot! So what I extrapolate from seeing this is that it’s boring to be hot-looking, probably because they’re jaded, because they can get whatever they want whenever they want it, and then they expect it, and then they get bored with everything, because they never have to earn it, since it all just falls into their lap all the time! In fact, I don’t think about the product at all, except to want to make fun of perfume/cologne ads! But it most certainly does not make me want to buy the stuff in any case!
What do the makers of such ads expect, that we will want to buy the ridiculously expensive smelly liquid just because some good-looking, in-shape guy is in the commercial? Are we supposed to be tricked into thinking that if we splash some of it on ourselves, we’ll instantly become as hot-looking as that guy? Give me a break! We’ll still be just as out of shape as we were before! And if some lady out there recognizes the aroma as being Acqua di Gio, isn’t it going to remind her of the commercial, and the guy in the commercial, and then be reminded of how much less hot we are than that guy? And then if we are as hot as that guy in the ad, aren’t we going to notice how bored and jaded he looks and then say to ourselves: “I don’t want to be as bored as that guy; I want to have fun!” and then not buy it?
Anyway, that’s what this ad and so many other high-fashion ads make me think. I suppose the models are supposed to give a “come-hither” look or something, but since they never have had to make such an expression, since the girls (or boys) always just come to them, they don’t know how to do it, and then they just end up looking bored. Could that be it? I have heard that runway supermodels are supposed to have sort-of plain-looking faces and keep neutral expressions on them, so that we don’t notice them so much and rather are attracted to looking at the clothes. Could it be that they are so trained to keep a blank expression on their faces that they just wear one automatically all the time without thinking about it, and that all the other fashion people are so conditioned to seeing them that way, they don’t even notice it? I don’t know, but they just look bored to me, and so I end up thinking that it must be boring to be hot-looking, and that wearing that cologne would only make things worse from his expression in this ad!
Oh, and isn’t sweating like a pig, and diving into the water and swimming around going to wash all of that cologne off of him anyway? Maybe he only wears it because he stinks when he sweats so much, and we see the bottle in that aquatic setting because since this place has only the options of sweating from the heat, or swimming in the water to cool off, he has to keep it close by so he can splash it on himself as soon as he gets out of the water so as not to offend even himself with his body odor? It kinda seems that way to me.
And another thing: what the hell is up with all this sucking in of the cheeks with models? Don’t try to tell me that his cheeks just look like that! That’s bullcrap! He’s sucking his cheeks in to look more like a handsome fashion model! (Even though he obviously is one already!) But why does he think that doing that will make him look like a model? Well, obviously it’s because all of them always suck in their cheeks like that! And maybe that’s why they always look bored: because it’s impossible to smile when you’re sucking in your cheeks! But when you smile, you look better and send a positive signal, which might make us think positive thoughts and associate them with the product they’re hawking in the ad (or wearing on the runway), and then maybe we’ll want to buy it!
But no, never mind: you shouldn’t try to make it look fun or enticing! After all, isn’t high-priced fashion stuff supposed to be like a popular nightclub where all the losers have to wait outside of the velvet rope for hours on the sidewalk? And that’s I guess, the allure they’re attempting to peddle here: a highly desirable thing that everyone is not allowed to have. The only problem is, I was never willing to wait outside the velvet rope, because the times I went into the club, I found out how lame it was inside, so I went somewhere else that was fun! And when I look at this model/actor’s face in this Acqua di Gio ad, it reminds me of that bored, disappointed, disillusioned feeling.
Seriously, that’s what it makes me think when I see ads like this: all the stuff I've just mentioned above! And none of it makes me even think of wanting to buy their stuff!
Here is the ad, in both the short, and the longer, version:
