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Introduction Sex In Advertising

The concept of utilizing sex and sexual imagery is passively accepted in society, infiltrating the advertisement and promotion industries for over 134 years, and being considered a norm. The use of sex in advertisements comes from the concept of using sexually provocative and erotic imagery, videos, hidden, subliminal messages, and sounds created for arousing the interest of the customer in the product, brand, or service. People tend to indulge and be affectionate to being sexually appealed by strong imageries impacting their physical and psychological experiences guided with love, ecstasy, and affection. The use of erotic images started in the 1870s, with cigarette companies using sexual images as a form of their packaging advertisements, being exceptionally provocative and progressing further keeping derogatory images in trading cards inside the cigarettes. Sex thus kept on selling widely globally as a strategy for attracting new customers. Nowadays, running sexy advertisements might seem risky but the results are fruitful if the idea aligns with business objectives.

Examples Of Sex In Advertising

The provocative use of sexual imagery in advertising has been on the rise since old times, being used in cigarettes, soaps, clothing, and food. In modern times, Sex is utilized by men's and women's magazines, with sexually appealing pictures on front covers. Online service providers are promoting sexual imagery on their websites and through advertisements to attract a new audience. Commercial ads of major clothing brands and body sprays base their ads on their products being sexually attractive to men and women, through their appearance or smell. The most direct example of using sex for promotion would come from the condom brands like Trojan and Durex and erectile dysfunction medication brands like Cialis and Viagra, addressing sexuality and safe sex through funny, clever, and gentle advertisements. The example that “sex sells” can be seen in the case of Abercrombie and Finch, an American casual wear retailing company that used sex for marketing its brand in multiple ways comprising of store models, greeters, and staff dressed in underwear and lingerie. The employees were selected solely based on their physical attractiveness. The strategy thus effectively, targeted the young adults with major disposable income.

How Is Sex In Marketing Currently Being Used?

Sex can be termed as one of the most effective and strongest tools that helps in selling products in a competitive marketplace. Many companies globally utilize sex for their marketing and promotion purposes relating to their success. Advertisement and marketing can be incorporated into businesses. The marketing can be done in the form of sexual imagery sending a hidden message to the human brain. Brands like Axe and Old Spice tend to use marketing to show their audience that their smell helps the audience to be more attractive and desirable to the females. The marketing is done in major fashion magazines that use sex to increase their profits, targeting the audience with stories like sexiest man alive and hottest celebrity news. Many organizations use digital marketing and sexual appeal to post images and messages with sexual undertones over social media. Posts are often provocative in nature for getting more traffic and engagement on the monetized content. The marketers and the advertisers mainly focus on influencing the basic human instincts like defense, knowledge, sex, and sociality through their promotions made. The utilization of sexual imagery and content is much more influential for the male audience, with promotions and campaigns appealing to their taste, fantasies, and sexual desires.

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Is Sexy Advertising Suitable For Your Business?

The use of sexualized advertisements is needed to be understood by gathering knowledge on multiple factors before utilizing the strategy for advertisement and marketing purposes. The most valuable aspect is the branding of the business and reputation before starting the campaigns. The sexual ads would receive a short time of attentiveness from the audience but if they get complained against, the harm done to the brand can be extensive. There should be a clear understanding of which demographics are needed to be targeted for the advertisement. The youth nowadays are focused on ideologies of women empowerment, gender equality, and body positivity, thus targeting sexually appealing content on them might lead to severe dissatisfaction and negative attitude. The advertisements focusing on sexual appeal with hidden messages use suggestive posts and linguistics to lure the customer’s attention. The idea of using sexual appeal comes from focusing on the attractiveness and sexiness of the use of the product even if the products have nothing to do with sex anyways. Thus, the idea of utilization of sex for marketing can be a controversial topic if appealing ads are used to market any product that is not appropriate for the brand or on the demographics, severely hurting the appeal and interest of the consumers for the product. Recent studies suggest that in modern days, sex does provoke an individual but it does not influence any sales.

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Why Sex Is A Powerful Selling Factor In The Advertisement?

Sex has always been a powerful factor for marketing, promotion, and advertisements creating a buzz for catching attention. The basic human instincts contain sex as a factor, which is utilized by the advertisements for creating memorable content for grabbing the attention and increasing revenue generation. People had been fixated on sexual desires noticing sexually suggestive information. Sex is used as a strong marketing strategy including strong sexual imageries in beauty, health, and hygiene, clothing, drugs and medicine, entertainment, and travel. In traditional times, sex was used in major organizations for attracting a major number of consumers, generating provocations to help sell their products and services to the audience. An understanding is needed of the targeted demographics and the product to be marketed for generating more effective solutions to grab attention and drive sales in an organization. Sex tends to generate ample curiosity among the audience about the product, being a distinct feature of attraction, for gaining a competitive advantage in a market of similar products. Sex is overall a risky strategy to be adopted for marketing and promotion but if used correctly can generate the interest of the audience, leading to an increase in revenue generation.