January 30, 2011

Sunday Inspiration: Shirtless Men

This is a new series in this blog. Basically, it’s just a collection of ads I’ve seen recently.

This week’s inspiration is a bit sexy. Why? Actually, I’m not sure why. I guess it’s the predictable thing to do for an openly gay man.

Actually, this idea probably emerged when I was working on one of my school projects. I’m currently taking a Publication Design course, and our first big project includes creating an ad. One of the choices is to create an ad for a line of men’s skin care products. Looking for inspiration, I came across many shirtless men on a Google search. I guess the old adage sex sells is still true?

But hey, this practice isn’t exclusive to skin care products of course. Shirtless men are prominent in ads for underwear, colognes, and jeans. One very recent example is the Calvin Klein campaign for the X Collection, which includes Twilight’s Kellan Lutz:

Even advocacy groups uses beautiful, shirtless men in their ads. Case in point: PETA’s campaign featuring Gilbert Arenas.

One of the most clever uses of a shirtless man in an ad is one that you’ve probably heard of. Two words: Isaiah Mustafa. Old Spice’s “Smell Like a Man, Man” was a huge success, not necessarily because Mustafa is shirtless there, but simply because it was awesome. Humour with a little bit of sex, as this campaign suggests, seems to be the perfect formula to go viral.

Speaking of Old Spice, earlier this week, Mustafa came back! It’s not because he forgot this jacket, though. Mustafa claims that he’s back “to inform the people on this crazy blue marble that we call earth how they or their man can use Old Spice to smell as fresh as the freshest-smelling places on earth.” Huh!