Sex Sells, but Only When Used Intelligently - Article Example

Sex sells, but only when used intelligently Since the beginning of the century, sex has been an important element used in advertisements to attract consumers’ attention to the product. Today, consumers find themselves surrounded by advertisements that attempt to arouse attention and purchase intention with highly sexual images rather than the actual product attributes. In advertising today, hedonism has transcended from the product to the advertisement itself. However, as advertisers use sexual content to make their eye-candy ads more appealing, they increasingly find their advertising strategy turning against them. Therefore, advertisers are faced with a difficult question: Is sex in advertising effective? Considering this question, they must also consider whether it generates positive attitudes for a brand and hence encourage purchase intention or if it merely attracts attention to the ad itself, perhaps even in a negative way. The use of sex in advertisements is not a recent phenomenon. Examples of sex being used to market a product can be found even in the early 1900s. An advertisement for Ironclad Hosiery published in 1927 depicts a woman in mostly covering lingerie with a slight sensuality and the tagline ‘the kind of beauty that thrills’ (Walden & Thoms, 2007: 494). By 1936, Woodbury soap was using a photograph of a nude woman to promote their product. According to Walden & Thoms, sex in advertisements can certainly be depicted through the use of male or female nude bodies, but it can also be conveyed through “body language, words, catch lines, music, voice and things that can have a double meaning” (2007: 498). While there are literally thousands of ways that sex can be and has been introduced into an advertising image, the effectiveness of this approach remains unclear. The introduction of sex in advertising is unsurprising given what we know of human psychology. People subconsciously tend to make mental associations between things or events that affect them strongly emotionally. Advertisers are well aware of this psychology and they deliberately manipulate this subconscious pattern in order to sell more of their products. They spend a great deal of money attempting to discover just what these deep subconscious desires might be. One study, for example, found that people have a very positive association with other people who have physically attractive bodies. People with attractive bodies and facial conformations are perceived as ‘complete’ human beings in every sense as compared to the ‘normal’ average-looking face-in-the-crowd or the ‘subnormal’ ugly person (Baker & Churchill, 1977: 538). These studies have proven again and again that this psychology holds true not only in advertisements but in almost every human communication, such as the normal interactions we engage in at the office, in school, while dating online or in person, while shopping and any number of scenarios. This positive association between the pleasing external appearance and assumed internal character functions almost as automatically as if it were etched in the brain. This is demonstrated as people consistently associate internal qualities like being strong-willed, having a winning attitude, being friendly, skillful, intelligent and loving with physically attractive people without even knowing that they are doing it. In contrast, people with unattractive bodies are associated with weakness and a losing attitude. Advertisers appeal to this subconscious habit of association as a means of selling their products every time they concentrate on using attractive people to demonstrate their products. If an attractive model is used in the advertisement, then the product is subconsciously associated with positive traits (Baker & Churchill, 1977: 539). Attractive people thus have more persuasive power than unattractive people. This was proven in an experiment carried out in 1968 for the advertisement of an automobile. In this experiment, it was found that a car marketed with a female model was rated higher in all aspects of its most common attributes. The female model not only boosted the car’s rating in aesthetic appeals such as in looks, appeal and overall feelings, but also managed to boost perceptions about the car’s performance in areas such as speed, design and expense. These results were reached regardless of whether the respondent was a man or a woman (Reichert, 2002). This is significant because it demonstrates how an attractive model can change the perception of the product and brand across most demographics and suggested the potential impact sex might have in future advertising campaigns. Regardless of one’s experience, it is unavoidable that individual identity is a product of nature as well as the environment in which the individual was raised. This will include concepts of gender, race, religious creed and culture to varying degrees. Even though nudity is obviously a natural state for the human form, the use of nudity in advertisements is commonly considered exploitation. In 1977, Peterson and Kerin designed an experiment to determine whether nudity positively contributed to the sale of products. They discovered that even when the advertisement depicting a nude model was rated as distinct and eye-catching to the respondents, these types of advertising generally returned very low ratings on more important aspects of advertising goals such as quality of product, ethics of brand and respectability of the company. The researchers concluded that, aside from a natural human desire to indulge their senses in sex and nudity, purchasing decisions seem to be based on more important influences such as cultural, ethical and lifestyle similarities between the consumer and the product, brand or company. Meanwhile, the use of women in sexual roles in advertising has led to a very unhealthy environment for women. A study conducted in 1990 showed that most women are very unhappy with the way they are represented in the media (Ford, LaTour & Clarke, 2004). Another study conducted much earlier showed that many advertisements portray women in very inferior roles as compared to men. They are depicted as little more than objects with no particular skills, talents or identities of their own. A 1980 study showed that women were almost always shown in the roles of housewives or mothers, conveying and reinforcing the message that a woman’s proper space is only within the confines of their home. At the same time, these messages continue to reinforce the idea that women are not and should not be the primary decision-makers for the household. In 1990, a study conducted by Ms. Magazine showed that for fifteen years of their own history and contrary to their stated intentions, even this magazine fell into the trap of publishing ads that depicted women as nothing more than sexual objects (Reichert & Lambiase, 2006: 127). Not only women, but also men from the USA and Singapore found the portrayal of female models in beverage ads offensive in yet another study (Ford, LaTour & Clarke, 2004). However, this same study found that men in India and China were neither excited nor offended by the use of female models in the same beverage ads. This demonstrates how the perception of sex and sexual references depends on the cultural and ethnic background of the consumers viewing the ad – beauty, and meaning, is in the eye of the beholder as much as in the intention of the advertiser. The gender role stereotype demonstrated in advertising changes from time to time as the feminist consciousness changes (Ford, LaTour & Clarke, 2004), however the predominantly negative association remains relatively similar throughout the modernized world. More specific research has also been conducted to determine the real effects of a single advertisement in swaying the opinion of the consumer. For example, in 1969, Steadman conducted a study to determine if a nude model in an advertisement would help in creating an association of that brand in the consumer’s mind. The experiment utilized two different ads, one in which the brand was advertised by a model fully clothed in normal apparel and the other in which a brand was advertised by a model fully nude. It was discovered that after a week of exposure to the two ads, respondents were not able to recall the brand name of the advertisement utilizing the nude model. It was considered that a potential contributing factor to these results might have been because the respondent sample was taken from a group of people who had been brought up in a conservative, homogenous background and this type of imagery might have been too shocking to them to the point that they were unable to remember or perhaps even notice the associated brand or product. A similar study conducted in 1982 found a greater number of males being able to recall product category when nude models were used as opposed to earlier studies (Dudley, 1999). Does this mean that times have changed? Can we say that now sex is easily being accepted and that we are going to see more and more sex in advertisements? Thus far, studies have proven that the use of sex in advertisements provide conflicting results among consumers although it nearly always draws some form of response. As these same studies have demonstrated, society has become increasingly desensitized to the shock of using sex in advertising with the current effect seeming to be that this practice increases tension in the female audience while it simultaneously increases sexual arousal in male audiences. The intention to purchase has been influenced by the sexual message and the moderate sexual appeal in the ad. While it was discovered that the lack of sexual information led to no perceptible decrease of the purchase intention, it was also discovered that female respondents tend to relate their own identities to the same gender model in the commercial. This is an association and a tendency not shared to the same degree by the male population in most instances. Thus, exploitation of the female in advertising can lead to much greater personal harm in the female psyche than male exploitation would lead to personal harm in the male psyche. Age also seems to be a major factor as it is seen that the positive acceptance of sex in commercials decreases with the increasing age of the respondents (Reichert, 2002). Thus, the studies have proven that there are many factors that play a role in making a purchasing decision. Moreover, sex in advertising does not only refer to the use of nude men and women, couples in sexual acts or sexually provocative poses. Sex can be suggested through the use of many other means such as voice, double meanings, music, camera angles and body language. A prime example of this can be found in a Calvin Klein ad featuring the actress Brooke Shields. The ad shows a camera moving from her foot to encompass her whole leg and then widening to visualize the whole body. It finally comes to rest on the actress’s face and Shields says, “Do you know what comes between me and my Calvin Klein? Nothing.” At no point does this advertisement feature any glimpse of skin other than the skin of the actress’s face and hands as she is wearing full length blue jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. However, the way she sits with open legs, hands in her hair, with tilting head and slow music suggests nothing but an intention of sexual arousal (Calvin Klein Commercial, 1981). Even the words and the catch lines of this commercial have the power of suggesting sex and orgasm. Shields’ comment at the end of the commercial also suggests that she is wearing nothing under her jeans and inviting her audience to consider the concept, another blatant invitation to sexual imagery. Numerous other ads have been developed that do not use nudity to suggests sexual undertones. Consider another ad in which a couple is shown sharing a caress and the catch line reads, “It is going to be an Aviance night.” This ad suggests that using the product, Aviance, will definitely lead to satisfying sex. The commercial for Herbal Essences shows a woman saying, “yes, yes, yes” in such a way that it seems as if the woman is having an orgasm (Reichert, 2002). The names of the prominent perfumes like Allure, Escape and Obsession suggest an act of seduction and carnal pleasures (Romaine, 1999: 264). An ad for lingerie by Victoria’s Secret, shows models dancing, moving, walking, sitting and indulging in erotic and sexually inviting poses on a ramp. Through body movements, music and enticing facial expressions, the ad shows a highly charged sexual atmosphere and hence sexual intention (Victoria’s Secret Commercial). Even when the whole body is not shown in the nude, visual images of women lying on beds, sofas, floors, dining tables, holding ice or a fruit pulp in the mouth, using her eyes and tilting her head to one side and showing her neck creates huge sexual arousal for many men. Another example can be found in the Eva Mendez commercial for Calvin Klein (Calvin Klein Perfume Commercial). Such commercials show women as if they are inviting you to flirt with them and are openly inviting you to have sex with them (Romaine, 1999: 262). People in the advertising business have become so obsessed with sex and sexual references that they forget their true purpose. Nudity, eroticism, rude language and innuendo have become a normal part of society. Something that was unacceptable few years back is acceptable now and most likely will be well into the future. Innuendo leads to the entry of the sexual messages in the mind of the audience in such a subtle way that the audience is no longer actually aware of it. It works in a very subtle way and hence there are chances that women who were until now against the ‘in your face’ sexual content in the commercials will get used to the sexually arousing images and visuals and will accept an increase in the intensity of sex as an advertising tool. This will lead to the need for yet more attention-getting images and hence an increase in nudity and boldness of sex references used in commercials (Romaine, 1999: 498). However, even if all these studies in the past and present demonstrate that sex does sell and has helped many brands like Calvin Klein, Guess Jeans etc to flourish in their businesses, there are many instances where it was realized that the use of sex played a major role in the downfall of these same brands and their products because they overlooked the consumer’s underlying need in their hurry to emphasize sex even where it was irrelevant (Reichert, 2002). Advertisers need to be smart and cautious. Barry Day has said in his presentation that, “The amount of ‘what goes’ in combining sensuality with advertising, depends largely on the culture and context of the times in which its produced.” Involvement of sex and nudity in commercials has to be relevant. Just throwing some sex stuff where it is not needed just for the sake of showing sex can kill the product and the brand. Irrelevant use of sex in ads can embarrass the customer and hence cause him to reject the product completely. Sex in advertising works but only when it is in the right amount, has a valid reason to be there and goes with everyone’s taste. Otherwise, sex in advertising can kill the brand (Driskill, 1985). References: Baker, Michael and Churchill Gilbert Jr. “The impact of physically attractive models on advertising evaluations” JMR, Journal of Marketing Research xiv(Nov 1977) : 538-555 Driskill, Matt. “Sex In Advertising Evolves With Culture/ Battle Of Sexes Changes To Balance Of Sexes, Says Day.” Journal Record. Oklahoma City, Okla. (Oct 31, 1985). Dudley, Sid. “Consumer Attitudes Toward Nudity In Advertising.” Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice 7 (Fall 1999) : 89-96 Ford, John, Michael LaTour and Irvine Clarke. “A Prescriptive Essay Concerning Sex Role Portrayals in International Advertising Contexts.” American Business Review. West Haven 22 ( January 2004) : 42-56 Reichert, Tom. “Sex In Advertising . Research: A Review Of Content, Effects, And Functions Of Sexual Information In Consumer Advertising.” Review of Sex Research. Mount Vernon 13 ( 2002) : 241-273 Walden, Michael, and Peg Thoms. Battleground: O-Z. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007 Reichert, Tom and Jacqueline Lambiase. Sex In Consumer Culture. Routledge, 2006 Romaine, Suzanne. Communicating Gender. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1999 Calvin Klein Commercial. “Brooke Shields in the Calvin Klein Jeans commercial 1981” Available on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK2VZgJ4AoM. Accessed 30 April’ 2009 Victoria’s Secret Commercial. “Victorias Secret-Sexy Push Up Bra Commercial Video.” Available on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kog1q14RUCI&feature=related . Accessed 30 April’ 2009 Calvin Klein Perfume Commercial. “Eva Mendes- Banned Commercial (Very Sexy).” Available on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq3ec9gyVvw. Accessed 30 April’ 2009 Read More