Essay on Use of Sex in Advertising

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

Commercials are used as an entertainment method, in which is used to attract and keep the attention of viewers and make them more susceptible to persuasion. Advertising is a critical marketing tactic in which marketers use to distinguish products in a chaotic market. Furthermore, to increase the effectiveness of advertising for a product, the advertising message should be unique and meaningful. Companies have tried to use many ideas to create diversity for advertisements and commercials. A positive correlation is also found between the degrees of how well an advertisement is liked with the brand advertised. The blog "Looking for Prince Charming” by a blogger named Piñata Princess, gave the pros and cons about the use of sex in advertising. The pros that the writer had was that sex is appealing, exciting, and something that the world desires. The pros of using sex to sell a product is that it is a very interesting way to convince people to buy a product. The cons were that using sex to sell anything can turn people away from buying a product by only remembering the model rather than the product. Another problem with using sex in advertisements is that it can be distracting and people may not even notice what is trying to be sold. These ads that use sex to attract customers also objectify women and men and this is one way they can become disagreeable. A consumer’s interpretation of an advertisement are more likely to assume a range of

Throughout Jean Kilbourne’s film, Killing Us Softly 4, she states that advertisement is frequently used to communicate with potential consumers and persuade them to buy certain products. While advertising’s main purpose is to sell products, modern advertising does more than just sell a company’s merchandise. Advertisers create the values, images, and concepts of love and sexuality that every member of society is pressured to meet; they tell consumers who they are and who they should be. Modern advertising tends to portray the two genders, male and female, in completely different ways. Men are described as powerful beings who are believed to be insensitive and brutal; they are posed and photographed in positions that create a perception of strength and dignity. On the contrary, women are viewed as the weaker sex and taught to believe that their outward appearance determines their value in society. In a Cosmopolitan magazine, a Miss Dior perfume advertisement uses a beautiful naked woman, with long, brown hair and brown eyes, barely covered by a blanket to sell their product. While the perfume being sold should be the focus of the ad, the woman occupies most of the image lying on a bed in a provocative position. She appears to be around twenty-two years old, which appeals to the belief that sexuality only belongs to the young and attractive. In today’s society, women are viewed as vulnerable, objects used to please men, and flawless.

Advertising companies have been taking advantage of the concept that “Sex Sells” more and more during recent years. Sexualized promotions, and advance consumerism because these attractive pictures and video clips draw in the eye of the viewer. Since numerous standard women endeavor to feel appealing and lovely, as such, they seek to take after the women showed in these ads. A more particular sub-classification of sexualized ad is sex notice, which the specific end goal is to delineate pictures that show cliché sex

Dickey, J. (2006) in “Out of Focus” says that advertisement portray women as sex object.

No longer is the land of advertisement showing only beautiful women in the media, but now handsome men are also dominating the scene. Yet as Glind says, “despite the apparent similarities, there are in fact profound differences in the ways in which men’s and women’s bodies are represented sexually, (160). Although both groups are now being sexualised in the media there are differences in the way they are coached to perform and the overall impression leads to a acute presentation of masculinity and femininity. In this essay I would like to explore the sexualization on men in the media and how it regards certain races and characteristics as attractive and how it influences the ideals of an attractive body.

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

Taking up the whole page is Beiersdot Nivea skin care product advertisement.In the picture you can see a young female and a young male model, the female model seems to be standing with her eyes close while the male model is holding her from behind reaching over to her neck jut about to kiss it. Both seem to be enjoying themselves as if they are about to have the time of their lives, on the ad is the word “SMOOTHNESS,” in bigger than normal size font letters, and underneath those words are more words that say “ TURNS AN IMPULSE INTO A TOUCH.” AT the corner of the advertisement is the light blue bottled Nivea lotion that is suppose to give you the smoothest skin causing great attraction and inducing all female women who put their eyes on this

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.

Have you watched TV in your own house and there were younger children with you, and an advertisement comes up promoting a restaurant? A car? You continue watching and all you see is overly sexualize commericals of either women or men that don’t actually promote the product but only the actor themselves. Advertisements today have become more related to porn than to their own products, this causes negative feedback such as body dissatisfaction, eating disorders, self- esteem, depression, and sometimes a vision of reality that is far from true. Advertisements and commercials that rely heavily on sex to sell products should be banned from magazines and television.

According to Twitchell (1996:157), “sex doesn’t sell, but it certainly captures attention”. Sheehan (2014) argue that sexual imagery has a stronger persuasive ability for men than for women, which might be because men have a different set of criteria for selecting a mate than women do. Men traditionally tend to recognise that a woman who is young, healthy and beautiful will be a good mate. Thus a lot of advertisers use sexual imagery to get a man’s attention. For women, the persuasive power of sexual imagery works differently. Sure many women will be attracted to a healthy, fit male model, but they also pay attention to the

The objectification of women is a huge issue in society and is often led by advertising. However many men still believe that the adverts depicting women in a sexual and often passive posture are not very offensive but rather very funny or sexy. However how would they feel if it were their daughter or sister being advertised throughout the world as a sex object?

Sex, indecency, violence, danger, disaster and death. These are topics that catch the eye of the average person. They catch our attention because they interesting subjects. They intrigue us. They spark our curiosity. They also raise a lot of controversy. Companies will use these words in their advertising to grasp the attention of all viewers. In this day in age advertisers will stop at nothing to get an edge on their competitor and will use such topics as sex and death to get ahead. Today, in this paper I will using the example of sex in advertising to portray this controversial area and exploit it's problem areas. Sex and indecency are very mature areas and should not be used loosely. In today's society almost anything

When advertising emerged in the 19th century, sex was already being used as a tool to sell products, services or brands. The advertisements usually feature an image of a beautiful woman or man who is either nude or even suggestively sexual, which typically has no connection to the product being advertised. Advertisers know that good-looking models in advertisements serve as a reason to buy the brand. The first recorded use of sex in advertisements was during the 1890’s when a cigarette company inserted trading cards of women who were dressed suggestively sexual. Comic book companies in the 1950s were using violence and sexuality to sell their

As stated in Controversies In Contemporary Advertising by Kim Bartel Sheehan (2003), “Some believe that the act of advertising products that promote sexuality either directly or indirectly tends to mainstream the products and make them and the resultant behaviors socially acceptable ( p.168 ). Sheehan (2003) also mentions that “products including birth control pills and devices and even feminine hygiene products are problematic for individuals who believe that private matters should be kept within families and that a public discussion of sexuality is inappropriate” ( p.168 ). This big concern about advertising those listed and other sexual orientated products mainly associate with the “youth” ( Sheehan, 2003, p.168 ), or more so the millennial generation, who are becoming more open about sex and sexuality every day. With the so to speak growing consumer market and all rights to form of free speech, sexual oriented product companies will continue to produce and advertise their products. While these controversial products will remain in our mainstream media despite opposing attitudes, it is important for the ads to convey the right information about the product and true message about the reality of sex and the open sexuality lifestyle that they are promoting.