Does Sex Sell?

Consumer Behaivior

Does sex really sell?

Sexuality is considered to be one of the most powerful tools in advertising, it as been around for the last two decades. It has been proven that more people will look at an ad longer if it has some type of erotic behavior in the ad. There has always been this age old question. That age old question, is does sex sell. The answer to that question is it depends on the situation the and the customer and what relationship the customer may have already developed from the product. There are some cases where sex actually does the opposite of its purpose, will actually turn customers away from your product. In other instances the customer will love the product and selling it using sex was a good idea. Then the final consumer will be the consumer that gets so caught up in the image or commercial of the hot girl or guy and they don’t remember what the product was. When you do your commercial you need to watch and make sure that sex is the best way to sell your commercial before you waste your time and money it.

The first things I want to talk about are the two levels, in views of women mostly, of beauty. The two categories according to one article, by Jeanna Bryner, are wholesome beauty and sexy-sensual. The two examples they give are Katie Holmes is wholesome pretty and Victoria’s Secret models are sexy-sensual. The interesting thing about this is women put other women in these two categories themselves. Originally there were 6 photos of 6 different famous women or models and they are supposed to select from a category of how you sexually view the person in the photo. The list of options had categories you pick from with descriptions like sex kitten and classic feminine. The research done for this magazine shows an important piece of information with its test. Women don’t longer desire to look like the sexy models that they see in magazines and on TV. Women are actually turned away by many ads that have sexy women in them. It was almost the sexier the woman the less the women liked the ad. It seems now that most women want to have wholesome beauty like Katie Holmes.

Then there is theory that we prefer to look at certain types of women depending on what kind of state our economy is in. One article states “When social and economic times are more threatening an pessimistic, we actually prefer others with more mature facial body and personality characteristics.” Pretty much the theory states “In times of trouble, strong stable, supportive people are favored… When times are good, we tend to favor the fun person.” Its this thought that sex still sells, people just prefer for sex to be sold in a more mature manner at this point in our economy. What this article pretty much states is that after 9/11 the peoples views on what they wanted from the tv and their magazines changed. A good example would be Brittney Spears. So has been trying to sell herself as a sex symbol for a long time. Her last good hit was “I’m a Slave 4U.” That was in 2001 before 9/11. Every since then her CD sales have not been so good. Even after all of the hype her new CD is only reporting ok sales.

There was another article that states that women do in deed like sexual music more then men do. It is almost known fact that men, on average, are more stimulated by and image of a naked girl then women are of a naked man. At the same time though women are more attracted to sexual music then men are. The reason some believe this is because women are more turned on and aroused by sensory sensations. The are more turned on by taste, scent, touch, and sound. So this reason why some believe the more women like bands that are more sexual like, NSync, Madonna, Elvis, and Britney Spears. So as a whole sex sells to women but really only with music.

Many say that sex sells, but you watch how much sex you put in your ad. For example Abercrombie and Fitch came out with catalog on April 18,2002, titled “XXX Wet, Hot Summer Fun.” Supposedly the catalog had naked boys in and girls frolicking in natural settings. I agree with the catalog when it says that this an inappropriate catalog for teenagers. Many consider there to be a fine line between sexual advertising and just plain pornography. And in order to be a good advertiser you need to pain attention to that line. An ad isn’t all about getting a costumer to look at your product, you also want positive feedback about the ad. Ads that have just a little sexuality in them usually get pretty positive feedback. The ads that usually have more sexuality in them still get attention but the consumer is more likely to have a negative feeling about the ad.

The Media Analyzer Software and Research in Somerville, Mass., did a study, using 200 men and 200 women, to see how well sexual advertising did