Sex in Advertising

What are your feelings about the blatant use of sex to sell products? Do you think this tactics works better when selling to men than to women? Does exposure to unbelievably attractive men and women models only make the rest of us “normal” folks unhappy and insecure? Under what conditions (if any) should sex be used as a marketing strategy?

“Sex sells”

A phrase used abundantly; but the validity of it is questionable.  Do people really buy products as a result of sexually stimulating cues attached to the product? More importantly, are the people aware that these cues are strategically designed to attract them?

We can see advertisements that have blatantly used sexually provocative cues, tailored to arouse interest for the product. These cues may include erotic imagery, sounds, suggestions or subliminal messages. In a typical scenario, sex in advertising refers to the use of attractive people- especially women that are used to entice the viewer to the product and the advertisement, regardless of the absence of any connection between the product and the advertisement.

Sex has been used in advertising since a long time; and there are several scientific facts to back this blatant usage. Several researches have proved that the human brain responds to certain primal urges and one of these urges is sex. In 1885, W Duke and Sons, a facial soap manufacturer, used trading cards with erotic images of the popular female stars in the packaging. Although, these are seemingly no connections between a facial soap and sex, the use of it increased the sales of the soap.  Therefore, it can be argued that sex does sell. In fact, popular men’s magazines like Maxim have used sexy, semi-naked women on their covers to increase their sales.

When advertisements have sexual cues, men, in particular are more attracted by them. In fact, we can see that for many products that are catered to men, attractive women are shown in the advertisement to attract the men. For example, the advertisement for AXE perfume contains the usage of attractive semi-naked men. The concept of the advertisement is also related to sex; where the usage of perfume is linked to the guarantee of men scoring women.

However, this does not mean that sex can be used to sell any kind of product. There has to be a relevant content. It certainly would not be appropriate to use sex as a tool to sell religious products like “dhoop”. Moreover, in the context of Nepal, people are still not open about sex as compared to its western counterparts. Although, sex has been used in Nepalese advertisements as well; its usage has not been unconstrained. Its usage is mostly subliminal.

The use of attractive individuals in advertising is definitely here to stay; however, there is a fine line to it. In some cases, advertisements with women having perfect semi-naked bodies have taken body-shaming to a whole new level. The following advertisements are examples of it:

[pic 1]

[pic 2]

In the first advertisement of Popchips, a pop icon Katy Perry is posing in an excerice gear holding two chips packet with the tag line, “Love without handles” The implication of the advertisement is that her body is aspirational and achieved by the sole diet of Popchips. There is also a quote that says, “I curl Popchips straight to my lips. Good thing they don’t go straight to my hips.” This advertisement has offended many viewers and can seemingly create subconscious insecurities in the minds of the consumers who aren’t attractive as Katy Perry is.