Sex has a distinguished place in culture. It is a constant theme and continues to increase as time goes on. Not only that, but sex has made its mark as an advertising tactic. However, this is not a new proposition. Sex in advertising emerged many decades ago and continues to claim its place. This presents a critical question. Does sex as an advertising tool sell? Research show that sexual appeals in advertising leaves a negative impression. Sex does not seem to be the optimal selling tactic. On the other hand, research has also found that sex does, in fact, sell by its stimulating and arousing effect. There are important factors to examine such as audience, where sex is implemented, how it affects brand recall, how advertising works, it's relevancy, and how it is used. Regardless if sex sells or not, it continues to remain a highlighted concept in advertising and culture.
Sex has been implemented as an advertising tactic for a long time. For example, in the 1910s an ad from Ivory Soap displayed naked sailors soaped up, waiting for a friend to hose them down (Smith, 2017.) Sexual themes have not let up since then. Sorrow (2012) notes a study constructed by Tom Reichert where he found that from 1983 to 2003, the rate of sexual ads increased from 15 percent to 27 percent. Smith (2017) examines a recent ad by Calvin Klein that depicts an orgy. However, regarding this ad, outrage broke out. This brings up the idea that sex does not sell. If sexual ads are creating a negative
Advertisements are everywhere, combining images and words together to create a message to sell a product. The initial impression is that the advertisers are just trying to sell their products, but there often seems to be an underlying message. It is often heard that “sex sells.” So, many advertisers will use beautiful women and men in their advertisements to try to market a product. The hope is that “sex will sell,” and people will go out and buy what the ads are selling. There are many advertisements and commercials that use this approach. Prime examples of this are the advertisements for Orbit Gum and A Diamond is Forever. Also, the commercials for Levi jeans use sex to promote the sale of their brand. As a way to
How many advertisements have been made that overly sexualize women to sell a product? This happens more than it should. Often women are sexualized just to sell a product. This seems like an effective way, since thousands of products are being sold featuring women this way. Most of the time the product that is being advertised has nothing to do with the image itself. Food becomes sexualized giving it a different impact. Women are either made to feel guilty about eating or are encouraged to eat. Men and women begin to see women differently based on the ads they see. Women and men feel by eating the product themselves, they with feel the sexual tension the image is giving off. In Killing Us Softly Four by Jean Kilbourne, she states, “Not only are people objectified in ads, but products are sexualized. We’re encouraged to feel passion for our products rather than our partners. And people and products become interchangeable in the ads." Both images support this idea that women and food are sexualized in ads.
Advertisements are all over the place. Whether they are on TV, radio, or in a magazine, there is no way that you can escape them. They all have their target audience who they have specifically designed the ad for. And of course they are selling their product. This is a multi billion dollar industry and the advertiser’s study all the ways that they can attract the person’s attention. One way that is used the most and is in some ways very controversial is use of sex to sell products
As stated by Fite, Fite, Mcelwee, Neal, & Smith (2000) sex in advertising can be viewed as unacceptable and poor in taste by some viewers and acceptable or essential to others. The debatable issue of does "sex sell" has become a great importance to society as well as the advertising companies. Random students at Northern Kentucky University were interviewed by Fite, Fite, Mcelwee, Neal, & Smith (2000), about there opinions of the use of sex in advertising. The students had several different opinions, here are a few examples:
Advertisements are literally everywhere, from ad pop-ups on your computer to the billboards you can see driving down the road. The purpose of these advertisements are to sell a specific item to an audience. The audience being the consumers and the ads being products such consumers purchase, the advertisements try to persuade the viewers that they need that item and that they should buy their companies product. While Schneider alcoholic beverages attempt to sell their product to adults through their advertisements by using very suggestive advertisement method which sexualized alcohol. In addition to using ethos, pathos, and logos to draw in their audience. Lastly, how this sexualized imagery is effecting the world
Everyone has heard the phrase “sex sells.” It seems to be a major factor that drives people to buy. Advertisers manipulate this behavior by creating ads that showcase their products as a way to gain love, beauty, and desirability. Advertisers frequently use sex appeal with flirtatious images as an attention grabbing device to play with the public’s emotions. Because the public is a diverse group of individuals, it is difficult to target the masses by focusing on hobbies, sports, or flaws. Because of this, advertisers target sexuality, something everyone can relate to. In the February, 2016 issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine, they overtly demonstrate this. In an ad for Kinky Vodka, they represent multiple sexual innuendoes such as provocative body posing, stereotypical feminine colors, and seductive wording.
Few researchers have explored sexuality in advertising across multiple countries or the factors that may contribute to its’ content. Michelle Nelson and Hye-Jin Paek examine the degrees of sexuality in advertising within Cosmopolitan across seven countries (Brazil, China, France, India, South Korea, Thailand and the U.S). Nelson and Paek’s study discloses, “even within a transnational Western magazine, degrees of sexuality differ” (2005, p. 371). More specifically their research showed that cultural values and political/economic systems are related to degrees of sexuality presented in advertisement and the “presence of Western (nondomestic) models, sexual freedom values, and a less authoritarian political culture
Sexualizaton and objectification in the advertisements we see and the media we watch has become a very strong issue in our society. With the idea that “sex sells”, consumers don’t even realize that they’re not viewing the advertisements for what they are, but for the women (or men) that are being portrayed in a very erotic way, posed with whatever product they were hired to sell. Many articles have been written so far to challenge and assess this problem, but one written by Jean Kilbourne (1999), “”Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt”: Advertising and Violence” holds an extensive amount of authority. Using her personal experience with the subject, as well as studies she has conducted herself on the topic of sexualization, she talks about how the amount of sexualization in advertising affects how society views the culture and products consumers buy. She also notes that because of the quantity and prevalence of these ads, the rate of all forms of sexual assault, specifically rape (mostly towards women of all age), increase, as well as other forms of assault. It is important to examine Kilbourne’s use of rhetorical devices, such as ethos, pathos, and logos, and how effective these devices make her article. This way, it can be examined for its validity and her understanding of her own research. Kilbourne’s article is very effective through her uses of pathos and ethos, but at the same time, it loses its effectiveness through her absence of a counter-argument, as well as a lack
The use of sex in advertising as mentioned earlier is said to have boasted a lot company’s revenues, but it also has its negative side which has caused a lot of problems in societies around the world. The idea of using sex in advertising is a very smart way that advertisers use to gain attention of consumers, but it has it's negative effects like depicting women as sex objects, forcing sexual innuendos on children, causing body dissatisfaction among youths even adults and it also attracts negative backlash on the companies that use it. It can attract the wrong kind of attention and sometimes it won't lead to the company becoming a bigger and better brand.
Given the popularity and the exuberant price for a 30 second Super Bowl ad is priced over $4,000,000 (Stauffer, 2013), more and more companies are using racy commercials laced with sexual innuendoes. The use of super model type females trying to sell products to the average football fan aged 18-49 (Gilmartin, 2013), using a variety of themes from Sexual assault (Covert, 2013), to the cliché that women are crazy (Covert, 2013), to a sexual fantasy with a make out session with a Victoria’s secret model and a nerd (Taibi, 2013), to waitresses turning into strippers (Covert, 2013), the list goes on and on; however no matter how the commercial tries to differentiate itself from the other commercials In the same time slot, one thing Is a common denominator between all of them and that is sex.
Advertising is a billion dollar market with a sole purpose to persuade the consumer to purchase some type of product or service. Companies use many different methods to convince the public to spend money on their products with most of their advertising focused around the idea of “sex sells”. This idea promotes a hunger in the consumer for gaining personal pleasure or acceptance of sexuality by the eye catching effects of publicly baring flesh. These ideas are promoted through TV commercials, billboards, magazines, radio ads, or any type of media targeted at the mass majority of people. Every where a person looks there seems to be some type of advertising based on sex. The illusion of making one feel they want, need, or cant live without
Everyday we expose ourselves to thousands of advertisements in a wide variety of environments where ever we go; yet, we fail to realize the influence of the implications being sold to us on these advertisements, particularly about women. Advertisements don’t just sell products; they sell this notion that women are less of humans and more of objects, particularly in the sexual sense. It is important to understand that the advertising worlds’ constant sexual objectification of women has led to a change in sexual pathology in our society, by creating a culture that strives to be the unobtainable image of beauty we see on the cover of magazines. Even more specifically it is important to study the multiple influences that advertisements have
Violence and Sex in advertising is a controversial issue in American society. Some think that this type of advertising is not an issue while others believe it can be a major issue. While most people know what violence and sex in advertising contain, I believe it’s important to define what it really is. Violence and Sex in advertising can be defined as any advertisement that depicts some type of nudity whether is be partial or complete while also insinuating some type of violence. Although sex in advertising has been around for decades, have the advertisers gone to far by incorporating violence into the ads?
Sex is everywhere you turn. Victoria’s Secret is notorious for their ads that plaster billboards and the sides of buildings, featuring scantily-clad women suggesting an obvious sexual air. The bags you receive at Abercrombie feature half-dressed models, often two of which may be kissing or touching one another. These sexual images are far too present in the every day lives of young children, much younger than what used to be acceptable. Aside from this moral questionability, ads such as these often contain images of unrealistic body types, which exploit insecurity to make consumers use their product, the result of which can be dangerous to mental and physical health. Finally, when I see ads like the one to the right, and rack my brain
Advertising is an important form of communication between products and customers. How to get viewers’ attention is first thing need to consider for advertising. Sexual appeal is become very useful tool in advertising, and it use is increasing. The sex appeal has a very long history, the first sex appeal advertising was introduced in 1911 by Woodbury’s Facial Soap (Campaign,2014). Once this advertising is released it has caused an enormous controversy, it is considered so risqué and inappropriate by several readers, even their cancelled their subscriptions to the magazine immediately (O’Barr,2011) . However, by today’s sexually liberated standards, this advertising already is positively chaste. During the next 93 years, sex is become a