Sexual Appeals in Advertising and Their Effects on Consumers

Sex appeal in advertising is generally viewed as an effective strategy to attract attention to your brand. It is obvious that the ad is using the “need for sex” appeal. There are two apples laying in a bed together. The makers, want you to think that the apples had sexual intercourse to make this sweet and sour gum. There is a yellow apple, it represents the sweet flavor.

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

"I do not think that marketers should use sex in advertisements. Sex makes things look more appealing, but it isn't a reason to buy a garment. I definitely look at the ads, but I am not naive enough to think that by simply buying what the model was wearing, I would look like him/her. I definitely think that sex has an effect on consumers, but more on the opposite sex of the model than on the sex that would probably be buying the product." Krista Funke

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.

An important controversial issue that America faces today is the debate of sex in advertising. Edward A. McCabe and John Carroll are two authors that present opposing arguments about this issue. McCabe persuades the reader into thinking that sex in advertising is no big deal, while Carroll explains why this is a major problem in America. Sex ads are defined as any type of advertising that shows pictures of partial nudity with wording that relates to the body in a sexual way, usually portraying women. Sex in advertising has been around for a long time but has the industry become too sexually explicit?

Newspapers, Magazines, Television, Online… advertising is everywhere. Within the myriad of advertisements displayed in front of viewers every day, there are appeals. Society neglects and overlooks these marketing strategies that toy with their minds, resulting in skyrocketing purchases after the release of an advertisement. In “Advertising’s Fifteen Basic Appeals,” Jib Fowles identifies the appeals he believes are implemented in advertisements. These appeals include sexual innuendos, powerful images, or comforting displays which draw the audience into the desired product. After analyzing the ads within the Vogue January 2018 edition, an extremely popular fashion and lifestyle magazine, the demographics can be determined as a market with expensive taste. The graphics are extremely feminine and contain Fowles’s previously mentioned appeals, like the “need for prominence.” Although not all of the fifteen appeals apply to these advertisements, Fowles’s list is still valid and does not need revisions as the readership of Vogue magazine is just a small sample of the population. Through the appeals of each advertisement, this clear readership is developed, rather than using all of the Fowles’s appeals and not addressing the correct audience.

Objectification of women is on the rise in society today. The underlying message is that women are living in a sexually gratified atmosphere. From advertisements to television and magazines etc. Woman are exploited as sexual objects while men believe depicting images of women in a sexual manner is funny or sexy but why not offensive or degrading? Therefore, advertisements influence the core of the sexualization of culture.

“Will the sexualization of women in advertising campaigns affect the young generation of 21st century”

Advertisers around the world face one of their biggest challenges today which is to be able to break through the massive amount of commercials and advertisements that people see each day. The average person is opportuned to see about 2,500 advertisements each day. These advertisements can be from a commercial about a detergent that makes your cloth smell really good after washing it to another commercial that is about people seeing you as a celebrity because you are driving a certain brand of vehicle. So how can these advertisers differentiate themselves from the other commercials that you see everyday? They simply use sex. Sex in advertising can be defined as the use of any type of sexual imagery to draw the interest of the consumer to buying a particular product or service.

Above all else, advertising is designed to get people's attention. It is not designed to be particularly moral or ethical in its orientation. That is why advertising often appeals to such base, human instincts as fear and sex. The sexual element of the one-sided appeal of the Secret Deodorant commercial entitled "Fear of Being Exposed" is evidenced by the use of a young, slender beautiful woman in a party dress lifting up her arms and looking seductively at the camera. The deodorant commercial suggests to the targeted woman consumer that she wants to be desirable, which means selecting a deodorant that does not leave heavy build-up under the arms. The ad suggests that beauty is the important concern for women, and women should want to seem sexy like the image of the woman in the photograph; it also encourages them to monitor themselves to ensure that their personal 'upkeep' meets social norms.' The persuasive appeal is conveyed through a very central, direct route.

Different strategies are used in all advertisements. Every aspect of the advertisement is strategically planned to appeal to the audience. For example, an advertisement that does a great job of using sex appeal to reach its audience is “Carl’s Jr all natural burger”. This ad appeared during the super bowl forty-nine, and it was a big hit. The ad features ,22-year-old model buxom, Charlotte McKinney. Throughout the video it shows her walking through the town and appearing as if she is nude. She gets all the attention from the guys in the town as she saunters past. in one scene there’s a man reaching for a tomato as she walks by, she turns around and gives him a flirty look and it emerges as if he is grasping her gluteus. At the end she appears in a bikini nearly nude “I love going all natural,” she purrs, opening wide to take a bite out of a big, juicy, “all natural” hamburger. Advertising appeals aim to influence the way consumers view themselves and how buying certain products can prove to be beneficial for them.

The use of sex in advertising may create unrealistic ideals for men regarding women, however, it is a powerful tool for selling products. Through the years advertisers have shown through their advertisements that sex does sell products. Especially when selling to the male viewers. Sex is the second strongest of the psychological appeals, right behind self-preservation, and its strength is biological and instinctive, the genetic imperative of reproduction (Taflinger). Sexual desire is an instinctive reaction in animals, and a person?s perception of a suitable mate is the basis (Taflinger). That perception is usually a set of criteria that the opposite sex must meet, and those that meet and exceed those criteria will provide the chance for

Even if the groups of people who shop there aren’t necessarily responding to the “sex sells” approach, they are still advocating it by buying Abercrombie as well as other stores that use sexuality in ads. It is rare to find someone that outwardly objects to this form of advertising; people have come to accept that this has become commonplace in the world of advertisement. This was not always the case though; the prevalence of this style of advertising is fairly new, only starting in the past 10 to 20 years. The difference between advertisements now and in the 60s is one that is shocking when considered in a side-by-side comparison.

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