Not too long ago, I was thinking of a loophole in the whole "sex sells" system. What I thought about is how does using sex appeal in advertising make you interested in the product and not the body if the two are not related? I can understand using sex appeal to market something that might be related to the product. For example, I don’t see a problem in marketing women in lingerie for Victoria's Secret since that's what a majority of their products are about. However, what about products not related to sex appeal? How does a half naked woman holding a beer (for example) get more people to buy the beer product? Am I the only one who thinks it would make the viewer more interested in the sexually aspect of the advertisement itself and not the product?
This is not just limited to products either, but concepts as well. Here's another example of why I think sex in advertising can be flawed. Off the top of my head, I can think of PeTA, the largest animal rights group in the world, has ads where nude female models will pose in a suggestive manner along with the words "I'd rather go naked than wear fur", which is suppose to get people to become vegetarians. They also have the Lettuce Ladies, among others. How are those ads suppose to make people more interested in animal rights and simply not interested in the model? Sure the ads may also indirectly say “by going veg, you can have this body too”, but that isn’t going to apply to most of the men viewing the ads. I can't be the only one who looks at the model and not the message. Again, just an example, not meant to be a discussion about the rest of PeTA.
I feel like if people are focusing more on the sexually aspect of the advertising rather than the actually product, the advertisement has failed it's job. I know, the sex appeal of the ad can be a hook to draw you into the product, but this also brings me to another point. Does the ad really need sex appeal to sell its product if the product itself isn’t in some way related? I know, ads may also use other tactics and I’m not saying ads shouldn’t do anything that isn’t totally related to the product they want to sell, but sex appeal seems to be the strongest tactic among them. Where I’m going with this is, do the advertisers feel like their product isn’t good enough to sell on its own without sex appeal?
If people are not interested in the product in the ad, how will sex appeal suddenly change that? It’s not like if someone didn’t want the cigarettes (another example) being advertised, a woman in a bikini smoking them is suddenly going to change their mind. Not to mention that should they buy the product, sex appeal is not going to have nothing to do with the product. For the people already planning to buy the product regardless of advertising, I don’t see how sex appeal would help that group. There’s also the risks of turning away buyers, but I guess the marketing experts already have that all figured out.
Despite all this, this form of advertising still works for unrelated products and “sex sells” still seems to get people not interested in buying the product to change their minds and do so. I want to see what you people got to say about this.
-
AttentionSame reason for funny or stupid ads which don't completely tie into the product. It gets your attention, and gets people talking about it, which is the point of advertising.100% Voted for by Weydon, TeChNoWC, Molzahn.
Plus there's the idea of projecting the image of coolness and something you'd want. If I see a fat middle aged man with a stained wifebeater and boxers on drinking a Coors Light, it might not resonate in my mind as much as a half-naked women. Not that it really works like that, but at the very least it's a more appealing advertisement.
Adding your reply:
Registration is required because of issues with spam. It is fast and free! This author would LOVE to get a comment from you, please join!
Please register or login to comment! It's totally free