Sex Sells.
- zigszagsandpr
- Apr 25, 2017
- 2 min read
n/b This is mainly anecdotal and my personal opinion, not based on published theory
If I asked people to think of an advert that uses sex to sell I'm fairly sure most people would be able to name completely different adverts. Typically when using sex to sell the advert will feature a beautiful women or man to lure in the audience, potentially making them think they could achieve that sexiness or relationship if they use the product. Either you could be as beautiful as that person in the ad or you could have someone like that.
This may be rather anecdotal but from my experiences I feel like for men, cologne and body sprays are definitely the ones selling sec the most. The idea, popularized bye Axe (Lynx in the UK) suggests that just by using the spray they will become more popular with the ladies and become a sex icon. Adverts literally show women chasing these men and in some ads actually licking them.
The sexualised ads targeted at men are more about them having sex, about them getting the girls and about them often dominating them. When it comes to relationships, womens seem more to be about love and couples rather than cold hard sex. The sexualisation in ads targeted towards women tend to be more about the women, about making her feel sexy and that she could achieve what the women in the advert can. Seemingly not quite as heavily based on something being thrown at.
However, is sex still selling?
People do respond to sex. It's eye catching, it's rememberable, sometimes it can be so shocking (such as the two adverts below) that you just can't not look.
Although people pay attention to sexy adverts they don't necessarily remember them. Going back to my point from my first sentence, not everyone remembers specific adverts. Why? Because often there is no connotation or context to let give people something to reference.
I feel like with all the activism and rise in feminism and racial power that maybe sex isn't selling as well? People are becoming more aware of when they're being manipulated by media and instead want something they can embrace. Ads such as Dove and their real beauty and the 2017 Super Bowl adverts show that advertising may be moving forward.
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