I don't know about you, but I think this ad is both intriguing and distracting. After this week's discussion on the effectiveness of advertisements and how they are perceived, seeing this ad for Downy caught my attention. The ad is a full page portrait of an attractive, essentially naked man with a flawless body, and the illusion of jeans on his body. For this, Downy is genius. By flipping through a magazine (in this case, a women's magazine), it definitely grabs the attention of the reader, prompting them to take a second look at the unexpected eye candy portrayed within the pages they are breezing through. After analyzing, I find this ad to be quite clever; Downy can make one's clothes feel so soft, he or she might even forget that they are there. I get it. But there is one thing that seems to miss the mark with this ad.

With so much space of the page being taken up by this portrait of the man, I feel the message that Downy is trying to portray may not be as effective as one would think. Downy seems to be taking a back-seat to this random man, as they have a minuscule logo of their product down at the lower end of the page. Personally, I believe an advertisement in a magazine should flat out tell the reader what is being sold without the reader having to go through deep analysis of the ad at hand. Barthes would applaud Downy for the message that they are relaying to their audience, but would agree that Downy is missing the mark of achieving a successful signifier within the ad, especially with the extremely small fond they used to illustrate the meaning of it. Yes, sex sells, but only to the extent that individuals can clearly comprehend what is trying to be sold to them. As I ask my friend what she thinks this ad is for at first glance, she replies, "Who cares? I'm too focused on his ASSets." Corny, but point taken. Once the reader get what he or she wants to out of the ad (in this case, seeing a nice body), they move on. Sure, this ad grabs the attention of the reader, but for some, the message that you should buy Downy may go right over one's head.