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Back to Subjects - Marketing

Sex in Advertising

Sex in Advertising Everyone loves sex, and it is everywhere in our society. They are on TV, magazines, radio, billboards, and basically anywhere you look today. People can not get away from sex in advertising because so many companies use it. Sex appeals are used in advertising all the time, and people love to look at it because “Sometimes people listen better with their eyes” (Steel 137). Sex in advertising is an effective technique that is used today. It helps companies successfully sell their product in our market. Of course it has to be directed at the right audience, and sold at the right places in order for it to work. Sex in advertising has been around for many years now. Ever since the Maidenform fantasy over twenty years ago. Here is a great example of sex in advertising. It showed women in their Maidenform bras and had different schemes to each one. Maidenform were showing that if they wore this bra and look sexy they could be successful in their jobs and get out of the house. Basically these ads made women feel sexy, and more confident about their bodies. Quit being just a housewife, which many of them were back then. It was now “The Maidenform Women. You never know where she’ll turn up” (Moog 109). The Maidenform bra ads symbolized the exciting but frustrating longings of the past (Moog 109). Of course this brought some controversy, but when you are dealing with sex appeal in your ads it’s kind of an automatic. That was then, what about now? There are many companies that use sex appeal in their ads today. For instance Victoria Secrets is one of the top sellers in lingerie. They show skin in every one of their ads. All of their models put on the sex appeal for all commercials and magazines. That is what helps them sell. Women look at those ads and see those girls floating on clouds like angels and feel they could feel the same if they wore that purple bra or red underwear. By showing these girls constantly looking sexy in their ads make women feel sexy just wearing them. That is the whole point of using sex in your ads. It’s amazing what a little skin can do. "In advertising, sex sells. But only if you're selling sex (Richards)." It shows a lifestyle. The life style of living sexy and powerful just by wearing certain underwear. Another company that constantly uses sex in their ads is Hooters. This restaurant is based around sex. First of all the name just starts it off. When people go to this restaurant they are going for two reasons, to eat and to look at the waitresses. Those waitresses don’t have to wear those tiny cloths, but they do. Why, because it sells and they will keep doing it until it stops working. It’s amazing that sex can sell food too in our society. 2 Those are companies that basically have to use sex appeal to sell their ads and products. Their advertising basically can’t get around it because their products they are selling along with a lot of products. Since their products deal with it, but what about the other companies that use it that really don’t have too? These companies use sex appeal in their ads as their way to sell their product. They feel that sex would be the best way at the time to sell their product to their audience. For instance beer, cologne, mints, gum, and even music artists. Companies like Coors Light, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Altoid, and Wrigleys have chosen sex appeal, and their product might not even deal with sex. Why, because it sells and if other companies can use it to sell then why can’t they. Reaching the right consumers means selecting the best strategy and sex is it (Berkman and Gilson 118). Beer ads have been using sex appeal for years. Lets start with Coors Light. They were the first ones to have the Coors Light girls. These girls would be on TV with just a bikini on and just pushing the beer. It almost made men feel like if they drank that beer they would have sexy women around them. Don’t we all wish that was true. It was just a gimmick by Coors to get the men to buy their beer, and it worked for a while. They did it smart by just using it sparingly. Almost every beer company has girls to represent their beer. They have posters, and shirts. Basically anything they could put a sexy girl on. It is proven that sexual imagery works better on men than women so the beer ads took advantage of that (Fowles66). For some reason men always seem to fall into the sex appeal a little easier than women do, but don’t count women out.3 Women could be persuaded into the sex appeal in beer ads too. Coors Light could make Coors Light men, and women could fall right into the sex appeal just as the men did with the Coors Light girls. Perfumes are big into sexual appeal. Calvin Klein is a big supporter of the sex appeal. Just take a look at their ads one time. They show a lot of skin and also persuade their female audience to have that certain smell on them to attract the men. If they have that smell they will find the special man when they go out, or so they are told or showed. Sure it can help out on dates, but the sex appeal portrayed in the ads seems to make a believer in the women. The same also goes for the men. Cologne ads also portray sexual appeal. Just like the women’s ads they both portray sex appeal to attract their audience. Tommy Hilfiger is a big cologne company in today’s market. Not all of their ads have sex appeal, but they use it. They have those teenagers and early twenty-year-olds that show their skin and have that look. Tommy Hilfiger puts these young people together at parties and every person in that commercial has sex appeal. Take a look some time and see how many ugly people you see in a commercial with sex appeal. The answer is none! Sex appeal is even in ads for mints. The Altoid Company has now put out ads that say “I’ve got the hots for you.” It shows an attractive female on top of an altoid box. She is wearing devil horns. Mints are supposed to be around so your breath won’t smell with the opposite sex. So if you have good breath, you are going to have a good night. With the sex appeal in this ad it makes the audience think about the opposite sex right away because of the saying “I’ve got the hots for you.” That must be a heck of a mint. Another company that has to deal with breath is Wrigley’s Big Red Gum. For as long as Big Red has been big they have had the theme “To kiss a little longer”, and then they show two people kissing. They always show two people kissing. It makes the audience wonder that if they chew this gum can they kiss a little longer with their special one. Of course then there are the people that think a little further after the kiss. That is where the sex appeal comes in. Just showing people kissing helps people assume things. Big Red is very successful and they will be for a while as long as the audience still accepts their ads. Sex will always be on TV, radio, in magazines and billboards. Why, because people always think about it. The companies just have to go towards the right audience and they will always be able to use it. There are some companies like Victoria Secrets who will always show sex appeal, and then some like Coors Light will use it sparingly from time to time. Sex appeal is a very effective in ads today for many different companies. As long as people are kissing a little longer, and going to Hooters, and saying hi to the Budweiser girls sex appeal will always be around. Bibliography: Berkman, Harold W., and Gilson, Christopher. Advertising. Random House, NY: Random House, Inc, 1987. Fowles,Jib. Advertising’s Fifteen Basic Appeals Common Culture.Eds. Michael Petracca and Madeleine Sorapure. 3rd ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2001. 61-77 Moog, Carol. Media Mirrors Common Culture. Eds. Michael Petracca and Madeleine Sorapure. 3rd ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2001. 106-114 Steel, Jon. Truth, Lies, and Advertising. Danver, MA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1998.

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