The Concept of Sex Appeal and Its Influence on the Consumer

The average number of teens watch almost three hours of television per day, which reveals them to thousands of images of violence, sexuality, from advertisements, according to the research done by scientists, by the time today's teens reach their old age, they would have watched between seven to 10 years worth of television during the trajectory of their lives. The content and the amount of television that teens watch substitutes other activities and could have a negative influence.Brands fascinating to teens take advantage of their particular vulnerabilities, the desire to fit in, to be apprehended as attractive. Teenagers have become the main target for advertisers. Teenagers are impulsive and invariably want the latest and greatest things. Advertisers see teenagers as great gateways to persuade themselves into buying their product. Teenagers come across over 40,000 advertisements per year whether on the Internet, TV or in their schools. Ads are constantly telling teenagers to buy this, look like that, or act a certain way. There are negative sides to advertisements harnessed towards teenagers. Teens are extremely accustomed to their place in the peer ranking, and advertising acts as a kind of "super peer" in leading them toward what's cool, what's satisfactory and what’s acceptable.Many teens are highly resistant to messages around body image, and marketers use this to their advantage with their

In “The Fashion Industry: Free to be an Individual” by Hannah Berry, Hannah emphasizes how social media especially advertisements pressure females to use certain product to in order to be considered beautiful. She also acknowledges the current effort of advertisement today to more realistically depicts of women. In addition, these advertisements use the modern women look to advertise products to increase women self-esteem and to encourage women to be comfortable with one’s image.

It would be nearly impossible for one to try and count the amount of products in today’s market aimed at bettering one 's self exterior. The Millennial’s are often dubbed as the ‘most selfish generation’ because the majority is preoccupied with its self-image and with receiving praise in return for working toward perfecting this self-image. Media sexualization is guaranteed to spark a response and has become common to the point where viewers are becoming desensitized to the obvious extremes. Advertisers take note of this and the evidence is conspicuous.

Advertising has been engrained in our lives since birth. It is something that is everywhere, whether be on a wall, on TV, or on a billboard on a busy highway. You might not think you are aware of its effects, but it triggers something subconsciously. Advertisement has been sexualized in a way that appeals and affects people in an unconscious level, it may also influence one’s view of gender roles. In the film Killing US Softly, Jean Kilbourne discusses how advertising has changed the way not only women, but also how man view themselves. A woman must look beautiful, be sexy and thin, while a man must be attractive, muscular and powerful to achieve the “perfect look” and in doing so, both gain acceptance.

Women are faced with unrealistic expectations almost every time they are presented with a form of advertisement. This idea is expressed through advertisements that feature a naked woman’s body tempting viewers to buy an electronic organizer, partially exposed woman’s breast being used to sell fishing line, or a woman’s rear being used to pitch a new running shoe (Heldman, 2008, p.1). These advertisements all show lean and curvy figures that are supposed to be seen as desirable. Research has shown that regular readers of fashion and beauty magazines in early adolescence are more likely to suffer from distorted

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

The existence of a predominantly male society and the continuous perpetuation of patriarchy heavily affected the way woman are represented. Women may have been experiencing many privileges nowadays than women in the previous century could not, but there are stereotypes and imposed gender roles that linger, especially in the field of advertising. One of the common types of advertisements that are dominant today are the ones that depict women as a sexualized object to get the attention of the male audience. In the research conducted by Parul Nagi, it is shown that advertisements use women “to draw attention of prospective buyers” (85), and these buyers are mostly, if not all, men. This advertising strategy places the man in the position of the gazer, and the woman as the gazed (Mulvey 837). Advertisements depicting sexualized women rely on human pleasure appealing to the sense of sight. Thus, they tend to become pornographic, wherein “it dehumanizes and objectifies people” (Kilbourne 488), diminishing their worth to that of an object to be owned only for visual and/or sexual pleasure and easily disposed of.

commercials provide a clear example; They use a female with bikinis or even with just a cover up on, the purpose is to sell the restaurant food but they make a focus on the model than the actual product; the takeaway remains to be that these ads are more harmful to the population then good. In some ads they make light use of rape, domestic violence, reduce women to a pair of breasts, and even throw in a nude woman (Sexualizing Women in Ads). These study suggest and prove that the use of exploiting women in these manners lead to younger women, and even teens/tweens, to place value in themselves due to physical appearance; thus leading to body dissatisfaction, eating disorders, self- esteem and

In studies that characterize people as enthusiastic purchasers, the rate of females extents from 74% (Hanley & Wilhelm, 1992) to more than 93% (Black, Repertinger, Gaffney, & Gabel, 1998), with the dominant part reporting around 90%. In research that analyzes persistent scores on Compulsive purchasing scales, females commonly score fundamentally higher than men (Scherhorn, Reisch, & Raab, 1990), albeit one study demonstrated that females in their late twenties scored just somewhat higher than men (Magee, 1994), and a study on teenagers neglected to discover any gender differences contrasts (Roberts & Tanner, 2000). In this way, are very powerless against urgent purchasing, in spite of the fact that gender differences contrasts may be less proclaimed in youthful examples. A study by Garce's Prieto (2002) on a sample of Scottish teenagers found that they were more likely to engage in compulsive buying behaviors due to the fact that they were affected by TV commercials to a great extent. Other factors that seem to play a role in extreme consuming behaviors are financial related, such as individual’s income. It seems that credit cards facilitates spending more money and contribute to wasting huge amounts of money that do not actually exist. Income combined with social class has been found linked to unlimited buying choices, not only materialistic reasons but also for psychological (Dittmar,

Although some argue that advertisements do not reflect society, I believe that idealized female figure in advertisements, from the Cultural Revolution to modern China, can not only reflect changes of real social value but also suggest core value of society itself, based on women’s physical appearance and level of control in ads.

Alyssa Michaelides, a professor at Eastern Michigan University, describes this use of stereotyped sexy women in ads and how “this image [is used] to sell everything from cigarettes to clothing to household items,” and in this instance, cars (1). This ad, in some cases, can be seen as sexist, as the car is being portrayed as a “men’s product” and encourages the man to compare the value of the car and the woman and the pleasure brought by both. Furthermore, it has been proven that sex sells, and this ad is certainly no exception. In “How Women Should Be Portrayed in Advertisements,” the authors discuss how women are too often portrayed as “decorative […] sex objects,” and unfortunately, this advertisement depicts just that (Roberts and Koggan 66). The woman in this Audi ad is dressed somewhat promiscuously, and as mentioned earlier, the way she is dressed and visually portrayed, separates her body from her intellectual abilities. The viewers are shown not a “personality,” but rather a “piece of meat,” to attract certain viewers to desire, in this case, the car. Thus, creating the woman into an object. A study conducted by Julie M. Stankiewicz addresses the severity of the sexual objectification and victimization of women in print advertisements. Stankiewicz studied ads from 58 magazines of all types and examined the degree to which

Nearly everywhere imaginable, there are advertisements. They put words and images together to get the attention of consumers. The initial impression from an ad is that the advertisers are just trying to sell their products, but in many cases there seems to be a concealed message. “Sex sells” is a slogan that many advertisers live by. Therefore, they use unrealistically perfect women and men in their ads. Frequently those beautiful women and men are seen as a reward if you were to buy their product. “It is hard to believe that in 2013 any company still feels the need to sell their products through images of sex rather than promoting quality, performance and environmental standards”(Reader). The quality and usefulness of a product should be the key point in the advertisement, not an unreasonable incentive of being more attractive.

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

In terms of women and sex appeal, the world of advertising has changed a considerable amount. Many of the advertisements which are seen in newspapers, magazines, and television fail to portray women in a more positive light. The image of females in numerous advertisements are merely viewed as fascinating "objects" while they are also being displayed in a fashion that is supposed to appeal only to men, i.e. exploitation of the body. Though these types of advertisements are very effective at selling their products to consumers, it seems as if the minds ' of women, especially younger women/teenage girls are being corrupted as they are pressured to live up to the ideal image: sexy and thin with a little extra curves.

The consumer then proceeds to act upon these urges. Compulsive consumers often engage in compulsive buying practices to compensate for unhappy events, and/or low self-esteem (O’Guinn and Faber, 1989). Some researchers consider compulsive buying to be a dichotomous behavior (Faber and O’Guinn, 1992); meaning consumers are classified either as compulsive or non-compulsive. However, research by Edwards (1993) indicates that compulsive buying, like many other consumer behaviors, occurs on a continuum. She found that compulsive buying ranges from non-compulsive, to recreational, borderline compulsive, compulsive, and addicted buying. In other words, consumers can experience no compulsive consumption tendencies, some compulsive consumption tendencies, or chronic levels of this behavior. The act of buying may temporarily elevate the mood and self-esteem of a compulsive buyer; however it is often followed by feelings of shame or depression. Wicklund and Gollwitzer (1982) stated that people may use symbols to build or maintain a complete self definition as part of a commitment to a self defining goal. Consumers may compulsively buy products to match their subjective perceptions of themselves with a socially desirable or required appearance as a self defining goal (Elliott, 1994). Number of people experience compulsive behaviors like shopping, drug abuse, eating, gambling and variety of other obsessive compulsiveness.