Truck Carrying Axe Body Spray Explodes, Shutting Down Texas Highway
A truck full of Axe body spray unfortunately met a fiery, explosive end on a Texas interstate on Friday morning. The incident, which transpired in Belton, Texas, at around four in the morning, fortunately did not result in any injuries.
It did, however, cover the area in that all-too-familiar Axe smell.
Considering that the truck was full of cans of Axe body spray, the fire resulted in the cans of deodorant shooting off in all directions as they exploded. The body spray cans ended up scattered across the freeway, resulting in a cleanup job that shut down the highway for eight hours after the accident, according to a report from local news radio station WDRB.
Considering the reputation that Axe has garnered over the years, the resulting reactions from the internet were meme-worthy. It did not take long before comments about Axe’s infamous 2006-era commercials started being related to the incident.
Axe body spray became incredibly popular due to the clever marketing campaign that made the product the go-to deodorant for pubescent boys. Axe’s original marketing campaign coined the term “The Axe Effect,” which was pushed by a series of commercials depicting men getting very, very lucky with women because of the deodorant. Martin Lindstrom wrote this in his book Brandwashed, and summarized Axe’s marketing with the comment, “Axe debuted with a clear message for insecure young men: Use Axe and you’ll get laid by beautiful women.”
Truck carrying Axe body spray explodes on an interstate in Texas https://t.co/4TKDuacDGV pic.twitter.com/aX5MrIRc5h
— WDRB News (@WDRBNews) August 31, 2018
This, of course, also resulted in some damage to Axe’s reputation. Being targeted towards teenage boys, as well as the “Spray More, Get More” concept, users of the deodorant were prone to soaking themselves up with the product. As with any perfume or cologne, putting on too much gives the completely opposite effect.
“Insecure high-school students had been so convincingly persuaded that Axe would make them sexually appealing that they began completely dousing themselves in it,” Lindstrom wrote, according to a Mic report.
Axe eventually rebranded itself and initiated a far more balanced (and far less sexist) ad campaign under the “Find Your Magic” tagline. The “Find Your Magic” campaign included a wide variety of demographics, with the LGBTQ community, the disabled community, and multiple ethnicity represented.
Alas, while “Find Your Magic” was a great campaign, Axe body spray already had a nasty reputation, and it did little to avoid reactions like these whenever trucks full of the product explode on the highway.
