So you've probably seen at least part of the commercials for Mayo where they try to show how hip, cool, American, and awsome they are in 30 or so seconds. If not here's how it goes, it has a young man with an "in your face" voice talking about how Mayo is a rebel but still cool and indifferent just like you, then their tag is "Are you mayo?" This is an advertising tactic called "Affective" mixed with a bit of imaging and positioning. The idea is to appeal emotionally and specificaly to one's self-image here. The goal is the next time you buy your sandwich spread you say "Hey, I'm cool so I should buy Mayo and not this other stuff." Full disclosure, these commercials make me physically cringe, and I rarely get through the entire thing before muting or changing chanels (consequently I am the demographic they are appealing to which is a bad sign).

Does it work?

Whether something works in advertising is a mix of recognition and whether it is a good ad. If you do enough advertising even bad advertising will work to some extent. However, this does not mean you are getting your money's worth.

Here's the problem with the Mayo ads:
1. No one in that demographic thinks Mayo or anything that goes on a sandwhich is "cool" - saying Mayo is "cool" is not going to change this fact
2. They are trying too hard. Think of high school. Did the cool kids ever try to be cool? Of course not, there is nothing attractive about trying to be something you are not. That goes for every kind of ad, but Mayo really missed the boat here.

How to fix it:
1. Take a different approach. Appealing to one's self-image when you are something that goes on a sandwich simply is not going to work. If Mayo cannot advertise health or taste or some other immediate benefit that one associates with food, then they need to create an image that falls in line with what a condiment is.
2. If Mayo still would like to take the approach in advertising of branding themselves a particular way, they may want to try humor, which is what their competition did, or they can switch demographics to something more "motherly" or even grandmotherly. This is simple and works almost universally when one is selling something that frankly, the young people they are trying to appeal to simply don't care.