Sex in Advertising

¶ … sex in advertising. The writer takes the reader on an exploratory journey into the use of sex in advertising. There were 10 sources used to complete this paper. The world is becoming an increasingly competitive place. While the globalization process moves forward, and teenagers grow up faster than ever before marketing departments are scrambling to discover the secret to targeting the markets for their clients. Marketing departments have a very demanding position in the world of advertising.

They must study many aspects of society in order to come up with and present in the best possible light the products they have been charged with selling. It is something that requires a deep understanding of human nature, a grasp on different markets, ages and interests, and the understanding of where the lines are drawn between offensive and alluring. The use of sex in advertising is not a new concept but its strategy and openness are ever changing aspects of the hawking of wares.

Many of the changes over the years have to do with a more open societal acceptance of its use and its boundaries. Sex in advertising is not a new concept. It has been around as long as products have been available for market. The use of se in the advertising world is one that has been attacked by media watch groups for several decades. The advertisers answer if the public did not wants it, and then it would not work so blaming the advertisers is wrong.

Sex has been used in many ways for many different products over the years. Whether it is a woman dressed provocatively, or a man giving a smoldering look to the camera, the fact remains that sex sells products, with almost little regard as to what the product is. There have been hundreds of studies conducted as to why sex sells products and the results vary depending on the research question and the audience, and market under observation, but the general consensus agrees that sex sells.

What constitutes sex varies as the decades march forward. There was a time in television when two people of the opposite sex could not sit on a bed at the same time. There were also times when someone could not show more than one shoulder at a time in any scene. These were restrictions set by thee powers that be of the television world and they regulated the amount of sexual innuendo that could be used (Zanot, 1984). This applied to shows as well as advertisements.

Since the beginning of the advertising industry the lines of these censors have been walked like a tight rope. The advertising moguls of the world have pushed the limits of these restrictions as much as they could in the effort to sell the products they were charged with selling. This often meant using sex in advertising in a way that tiptoed along the border of advertising decency. Print ads used the same route to sell their products.

Print ads frequently used sex appeal, or attractiveness as a promise to the customer for buying the product. This did not have to be beauty products only. Sex appeal has been used in the marketing of almost everything under the sun (Stanaland, 1999). Cars and trucks have been sold because of the female in the biking washing it in the ad.

Vacation get away are sold when the viewer or reader sees that this particular hotel will turn a harried housewife and mother back into the sexy young woman that she used to be. There are many angles for the advertising industry to tap into when it comes to using sex appeal and desirability to promote the desire to buy a product or a service. In 1933 there was an advertisement in McCall's magazine about birth control products.

In 1933 there were many more social as well as advertising taboos when it came to the use of sex in the market place, therefore it was a much less open sexual innuendo than today but it was still there (Tone, 1996). The ad read "The most frequent eternal triangle: A HUSBAND.. A WIFE.. And her FEARS" (Tone, 1996). The ad went onto discuss the importance of a woman maintaining the allure of perfection and beauty at all times (Tone, 1996).

This ad played on the fear that she would not appear sexy to her husband if he ever discovered that she had cycles (Tone, 1996). It was unrealistic to believe but at the time it was the basis for many advertisements and the technique worked. Women wanted to remain sexy, pure and perfect in the eyes of their spouses therefore they should buy this particular product to maintain that image (Tone, 1996). The message was clear and simple (Tone, 1996).

Fewer marriages would flounder around in a maze of misunderstanding and unhappiness if more wives knew and practiced regular marriage hygiene (Tone, 1996). Without it, some minor physical irregularity plants in a woman's mind the fear of a major crisis. Let so devastating a fear recur again and again, and the most gracious wife turns into a nerve- ridden, irritable travesty of herself (Tone, 1996). Hope for the vexed woman was at hand, however. In fact, it was as close as the neighborhood store (Tone, 1996).

Women who invested their faith and dollars in Lysol, the ad promised, would find in its use the perfect panacea for their marital woes. Feminine hygiene would contribute to "a woman's sense of fastidiousness" while freeing her from habitual fears of pregnancy. Used regularly, Lysol would ensure "health and harmony.. throughout her married life (Tone, 1996)." The use of sex in advertising is anything but new. The reason and the way it is used has changed many times over the years depending on the current societal norms for the time.

In the 1930's sex in advertising was limited to the emotional appeal of females. Advertisers realized that the women's emotional state at the time of the ad would promote or not prompt her to make a purchase (Zanot, 1984). Because it was well-known at that time that females were the head shoppers of the family for many items females were targeted for the purpose of advertising to boost sales. By the 1940's the marketing departments began to see a subtle shift.

While it was still important for women to be stroked emotionally they were also emerging as separate entities with the desire to appear desirable for their own satisfaction (Tone, 1996). This caused a shift in the way ads were being developed and implemented in both print and film. In the 1950's the stage changed yet again and the female consumer began to gain some respect in her own right as a chief consumer of certain products (Tone, 1996).

Sex was used in ads at this time to try and attract the female to make purchases (Tone, 1996). This worked in many products ads however, the truck sales, car sales, home sales and other markets remained largely untouched by sex in advertising. The 1060's saw the women's movement and there was an explosion of sexual innuendos in advertising that began and has not stopped yet. Women today are viewed as counterparts to men.

Marketing departments around the world are constantly scrambling to appeal to the emotional and physical desires of the consumers. The use of sex in advertising has reached an all time high and the taboos and restrictions of yesterday are long gone. In their place is a freedom of unprecedented proportions, which have continued to increase in their use (Thompson, 1995). Sex in advertising sells. It is the one thing that everybody seems to agree with.

How it is used, how far to go and why it works remain under constant investigation (Tone, 1996). In the study of sex and advertising there are many factors and variables to be considered (Jones, 1998). One of the most important differences in the use of sex in advertising as well as the research studies conducted is the difference in genders. Gender targeting is an important element of sex in advertising because of the differences in the way the genders respond to and react to the ads in question.

The use of sex is gender specific in many instances of advertising though there are some cases in which the gender specifications are not necessary (Jones, 1998). Sex appeals in advertising now include eye-catching male models as well as cheesecake - sexy female models. Over the last 25 years, researchers investigating the effectiveness of sexy ads, most often cheesecake ads viewed by men, have reported mixed findings, in general concluding that such ads attract attention but do not improve either recall of or attitude toward the brand (Jones, 1998).

The emergence of beefcake ads, ones with sexy male models, prompts the question of whether responses parallel those to cheesecake ads (Jones, 1998). Further, recent literature on differences between the sexes in responses to the same stimuli suggests that men and women may respond differently to any ad that makes a gender perspective salient (Jones, 1998). " recent study used two premises from which to develop its and hypothesis. The first premise that advertisers do need to know about responses to what is often referred to as a cheesecake ad.

The reason this needs to be understood is the changing times (Jones, 1998). Men and women both are constantly evolving and their belief as to what is appropriate and what is not appropriate (Jones, 1998). This indicates that findings in previous studies may no longer be valid or apply to the current market. There are many factors to be studied in the research of sex in advertising. One of the factors is the way the participants are dressed.

The use of provocative dress in the advertisements regardless of the product is a common theme among marketing gurus. Studies are conducted on how the respondents react to the ads with more suggestively dressed actors, and those with less provocative clothing. The studies also had to separate male and female respondents because of the obvious gender bias each viewer or reader would have to the genders in the advertisements. The pattern of relationships expected was based on four overlapping streams of research.

The first important stream consists of studies of sexy models in advertising. The second pertains to the interpretation of, and reaction to, the pictorial components of an ad. The third stream is represented by the deconstruction literature, and has been applied to understanding how consumers read ads. That perspective, which sees individual reaction to a communication as dependent on situation and context, has contributed to the position that communication is inherently gendered; that is, it contains cues that readers recognize as representing statements about gender (Jones, 1998).

The fourth research stream pertains to the general formulations of advertising response (Jones, 1998). Of specific interest was the dual mediation hypothesis that reaction to an advertised brand is influenced by cognitive processing of advertised messages and the attitudes that such processing may in turn influence, but also that reaction is influenced directly by emotional response to the advertising (Jones, 1998)." Sexy models in advertising have been an accepted practice for more than 50 years (Jones, 1998).

Beginning half a century ago advertisers would often place a scantily clad model in an ad and the study the results of that ad. Research indicated that the sex in advertising strategy did in fact boost sales. The marketers would then try it again and the boom began. Once researchers began testing the efficacy of including such a model as an attention-getter, they simply followed advertising practice: they conducted their research using a sexy female model and an audience of men.

They measured the effects on not only attention, but also other variables, such as brand name and copy point recall (Jones, 1998). " As time moved forward the researchers began to study the response of females to the same ads. They began to discover that women would also respond positively to the sex in ads if it appealed to their sense of who they wanted to be.

A woman who sees an ad for a certain food, for example, will be more open to buying that food if the person in the ad is a beautiful and sexy female. It appeals to her desire to become that sexy once again, long before the days of children, husbands, jobs and homes to be taken care of (Wise, 1994). For the young woman not yet fettered by such obligations it appealed to her sense of desire to stay that way and not become bogged down in middle-aged concerns.

The men of course, enjoyed the ad for the aesthetic vantage point and would purchase the product based on the fond memory they had of the advertisement they saw. Understandably, differences in responses have been found between men and women. When Mick and Politi (1989) asked student subjects to relate their thoughts and feelings about a suggestive ad with a dominant visual content, the subjects reported a great variety of interpretations.

Gender differences in interpretation were found and could be traced back to differences in sensitivity to symbolic meanings within the pictures (Jones, 1998). In contrast, Elliott et al. (1995) expected to find such differences but did not. They noted that many sexual images are ambiguous, giving rise to interpretations that vary between sexes, although their study results did not support their expectations of interpretive differences (Jones, 1998).

Plausibly, then, if interpretations yield beliefs that influence memory of the ad and attitudes toward it, those variables will be influenced by the sex of the respondent interacting with the degree of sexiness in the ad and the gender of the model (Jones, 1998). " The research has indicated several interesting things. One of the most interesting points that the research has teased out is the difference between men and women when responding.

Research has shown that men respond well to a female sexual image but do not respond well to a male sexual image. Women on the other hand respond positively to females and males who are used in the ads with sexual connotations. Because of this discovery marketers have been willing to use a sexual female in ads for products in which they want to appeal to both genders (Gelb, 2000).

They also stick with females only in ads for products that are meant to appeal to men only because females can respond to females or males on an almost equal basis the marketers realize they are safest using a female in the ads. The females respond positively and purchased the product or service, as do the males. Research has indicated if the advertisers were to use a sexual male the men observing the advertisers might not be inclined to be attracted to the product itself.

Research has not been limited to the proof of attraction and the fact that it works in the advertising field. Research has also been conducted to determine why it works. This goes back to the marketing need to understand human nature so that it can tap the desires of the human in order to sell the products or services in question (Reichert, 2001). "Increasingly, social marketers are using sexual information in public service announcements and collateral material for a wide range of causes.

This study builds on previous research to explain how sexual appeals can affect cognitive processing and persuasion for "help-self social marketing topics. It also goes beyond traditional single-message research designs by testing matched pairs of appeals (sexual/nonsexual) for 13 social marketing topics. The major finding was that sexual appeals were more persuasive overall than matched nonsexual appeals for social marketing topics. Sexual appeals also stimulated more favorable ad execution-- related thoughts but had a negative effect on cognitive elaboration (e.g., support and counterarguments).

Respondents also reported that sexual appeals were more attention getting, likeable, dynamic, and somewhat more apt to increase their interest in the topic than were nonsexual appeals. These findings suggest that persuasion is largely the result of peripheral processing and distraction from somewhat unpleasant messages when receivers are expected to counter argue the message or be resistant to change (Reichert, 2001). " The results were predicable based on the reactions that advertising has thus far received in the use of sex.

Research indicates that sexual information evokes certain desirable emotions in the viewer. This held true, according to studies, whether the sexual images were used in pictures, stories, or sounds in advertising. It doesn't seem to matter how sexual images are transmitted, as long as they are received. Advertising research reveals that sexual appeals are attention getting, arousing, affect inducing, and memorable (Reichert, 2001).

These attributes may be one reason social marketers and nonprofit organizations use sexual appeals for a variety of topics ranging from skin and breast cancer to sexually transmitted diseases to attempts to increase attendance at opera performances and university sporting events (Reichert, 2001). These instances and others suggest that sexual appeals may be effective for social marketing, despite the lack of empirical evidence that indicates the efficacy of these appeals beyond the consumer product context.

Verification of these effects (or lack thereof) will prove valuable to social cause organizations that use- or are considering using-sexual appeals (Reichert, 2001). " The use of sex appeal in advertising has been studied for half a century (Bhat, 1998). However, the use of sexuality in advertising has been studied in the strict sense of heterosexual consumers until recently. At the end of the 1990's studies began to emerge that measured the affects of sexuality in the ads targeting homosexuals.

In addition the studies looked at the way gays responded to sexuality in straight ads as well (Bhat, 1998). The response to homosexual imagery in advertisements from heterosexuals was also examined (Bhat, 1998). The studies provide evidence that responses to ads vary with group membership, they stress relatively broad demographic characteristics of ethnicity and gender roles. Further empirical work on other aspects of group membership and their effects on ad processing are indicated (Bhat, 1998). In our study, we defined social groups in terms of their lifestyles, specifically their sexual orientation.

Obviously, we can expect to see favorable reactions when groups encounter imagery in ads that are consistent with their lifestyles. Less obvious is the reaction of a majority group, heterosexuals in our study, to ads that portray a distinct and controversial minority group, that is, homosexuals. Further, we recognize that heterosexual consumers' reactions are not likely to be homogeneous, but are likely to depend on their attitude toward homosexuality, specifically the degree to which they are prejudiced toward homosexuals and their lifestyle.

Hence, we next examine the literature on individual and within-group differences (Bhat, 1998). " The hypothesis for the study in question was that heterosexual consumers were considerably different in the way they would respond to certain sexual uses in advertising from homosexuals. Using a self-reporting survey many factors were considered, including religious differences, family values and political preferences. This was done for the purpose of trying to homogenous the group and brings it down to the core question of homosexual vs. heterosexual advertising responses (Bhat, 1998).

The variable that the reaction would be measured by would be homosexual vs. heterosexual imagery in advertising and nothing else. Because of the negative attitudes still prevalent in the nation regarding homosexuality the study anticipated and expected a lower positive response to advertisements which had homosexual imagery contained within them (Bhat, 1998). The study concluded that society is becoming much more open-minded and tolerant of different lifestyles and that young adults between 20-30 are open to the use of homosexual imagery in advertising (Bhat, 1998).

It raised a more positive reaction than was anticipated and the gender acceptance was much less divided in this age group had in some of the older age groups in previous studies (Bhat, 1998). The use of sexual imagery is not confined to positive selling. The use of sexual imagery has been used for several years now in the campaign against drugs (Twohey, 2000). Anti-drug campaigns have leaned in the direction of the use of sexual imagery for much the same reason that other products and services have done so.

Ads that depict a sexy young man or woman turning down the use or invitation to use drugs have been hitting the airwaves and print media for several years. The studies have shown that sexual imagery evokes positive emotion in the viewer (Twohey, 2000). The anti-drug campaign tapped into this research finding and used it to try and stop teens from getting involved in drugs. Using sexual imagery to appeal to teens to refuse drugs is relatively new but is based on the studies of other purposes in the past (Twohey, 2000).

The impact of sexual imagery in advertising is also affected by the impact of ritual and advertising. Sexual rituals are often the focal point of the use of ritual in advertising (Twohey, 2000). Dressing provocatively, the use of certain cosmetics and other rituals that are associated with sex are often used in the world of advertising to appeal the sexual desires and admiration of those who are targeted as potential consumers. Ritual symbolism abounds in advertising.

As holidays come and go, advertising imagery in media ranging from local newspapers to national television cycles through the traditional motifs: confetti, hearts, shamrocks, eggs, flags, leaves, pumpkins, turkeys, holly sprigs. Hallmark, Kodak, and AT&T remind us when we need to send a card, pick up film, or make a phone call to mark a special occasion (Otnes, 1996)." All of these things are also related to the sexual imagery often used by marketing companies around the world.

Ads also borrow ritual symbols to express metaphors, moods, and arguments for products unrelated to particular rites. Clearly, ritual symbols in commercial messages serve a variety of purposes and take a multitude of forms (Otnes, 1996)." relationship between advertising and ritual has been suggested in several areas of advertising and marketing research. For example, scholars have examined consumer rituals as incidences of symbolic consumption. Yet only.