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.
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There are times when sex can and can't be useful in promoting your product. In magazines its not a good idea to have sexual advertisements. One reason is guys will be to distracted that they won't even look at what the ad is for. The second reason is that women just flat don't want to see it, so they definitely won't read the ad, even if there is a hot guy in the ad. And we see almost the same pattern in everything else. What's happening her is that sex is out. It has slowly become distasteful in the U.S. Part of me thinks that it also has to with the fact that in our generation we are more family oriented. Who wants to see a sexual commercial sitting down watching TV with your Mom and Dad? I certainly don't. Sex does sell one thing very well, and that's sex. That is about the only time that sexual advertisements will work. Sex, I think, also works pretty well in person. For example, having pretty girls work at Hollister. I know when I'm trying on clothes if a pretty girl says "ooo that looks cute on you," I'm a lot more likely to buy it. From doing this paper and research I have changed my view on whether sex sells. I think that sex used to sell. But as far as right now, in the world we are living in now, no. I do not think sex sells anymore, and think many guys are looking at women more as people now and not just sex objects. Women are making quick progress on gaining respect for themselves from men. And I think probably one of the main facts why sex isn't selling anymore is because men have really started to respect
This thought has been held on for far too long. In a consumer-driven society, advertisements invade the minds of every person who owns any piece of technology that can connect to the internet. Killbourne observes that “sex in advertising is pornographic because it dehumanizes and objectifies people, especially women,” (271). Advertising takes the societal ideology of women and stereotypes most kids grow up learning and play on the nerves of everyone trying to evoke a reaction out of potential customers, one that results in them buying products.
Many women are very sensitive about the way they look, which makes them depend on media products more. The media culture sends mixed messages about what is sexy, which causes women to face similar unrealistic expectations when exposed to media images. Some mes...
Advertisers use whatever they can to attract the reader. From a sexual appealing look to a word. One of the most helpful approaches is sex of course which can capture anyone's attention. The ad for Opium perfume depicts a young brunet that has nicely shaped body and wears nothing but golden slippers, necklace and bracelet. Model is laying down seeming like she is enjoying herself and maybe experiencing orgasm. Again in Dolce & Gabbana ad, we see man and woman having passionate foreplay; with one hand he is pulling her bra strap down while with other touching her breast and she is taking her panties off. In this ad, the naked female body and idea of sex is used to get the image of their product into the reader's memory. "Newsweek wrote: The strategy is that, while the consumer studies the picture, the designer's name melts into the brain. And a big part of the message that was melting in was sexual." (Streitmatter, pp. 123) Anyhow, both ads use sexual attention to grab reader's attention. This is exactly what Calvin Klein had intended he wanted to "make sure, first and foremost, that anyone who was thumbing through the pages of a magazine would stop and look at the ads.
Advertisements are all over the place. Whether they are on TV, radio, or in a magazine, there is no way that you can escape them. They all have their target audience who they have specifically designed the ad for. And of course they are selling their product. This is a multi billion dollar industry and the advertiser’s study all the ways that they can attract the person’s attention. One way that is used the most and is in some ways very controversial is use of sex to sell products. For me to analyze this advertisement I used the rhetorical triangle, as well as ethos, pathos, and logos.
A long line of women fills up a traditional looking catholic church. One by one they are pouring into the tiny, wooden Confessional. At the bottom right corner, a box sits saying “The Axe Effect” and the image of a can of Axe body spray. The women seem to be all different ages, business women to high school ,and come from all walks of life though their faces are not showing. With their hands crossed, and heads bent at a slight angle. Hands are full, perhaps showing a crunch for time during their busy days. Crowding into the small sanctuary looks slow and tiring. Are these women reluctantly waiting to spill the beans of a night to remember or trying to get their hands on the priest who bought the wrong body wash? Their stance is tight and it reads as unclear if they feel rushed to be there or to leave. Light pours into the room like a spotlight and gives everyone's clothing muted hues. The placement of the confessional and the slope of the line of women leads the eye to the kneeling women and straight down to can of Axe. The minimalistic use of typography and graphics keeps it ...
“Sex sells” has been used as an excuse to exploit and humiliate women through advertising for years. It is seen everywhere: television, movies, magazines, billboards, literally any place that can have an advertisement put in/on it. One company that specializes in advertisements composed of sexualizing women in order to sell their clothes is American Apparel. For years, they have created degrading ads that make the average believe they need to look like these images in order to feel good about themselves. Advertisements like these have a negative effect on society and especially women but American Apparel has taken things to a whole new level of exploitation.
Watching television growing up, half of the time spent watching was filled with advertisements. Most of the time, the ad would include a beautiful woman, barely dressed, doing something sexually suggestive. The whole advertisement would consist of this, while most people have no idea what the product being sold is. Then at the very end, they provide a brief description of the product. This is an example of using sex to sell products. It is no secret that advertisers have been using sex to sell their products for years. These tools are used in all types of advertisements. However, this is not just selling sex, it is selling elitism. It is selling the status of “hey, if you can get our product, you can get these types of girls”. Elitism is
“Sex sells” is an aphorism closely adhered to by both the film and print advertising industries. For over a century, magazines, newspapers, film, and other advertising mediums have utilized women and sexuality to persuasively market their products to consumers (Reichert, 2003). By representing an assortment of consumer products surrounded by women who exemplify a “desired” body type, marketing specialists quickly discovered the direct correlation between sexuality and consumer buying. So why is using beauty and sexuality as a marketing gimmick so harmful? With women being the primary audience of both general interest and consumer product magazines there is constant exposure to the idealistic body image that advertisers and mass media believe women should adhere to.
The stereotype that most of the companies nowadays uses is the sexual intent advertisement. Since mostly everybody have interest in sensuality, companies abuses this method of having a sensual advertise. As of today, most of the commercial in television have a sensual feeling or visual that society looks forward to. This will give the interest of the society to view and watch the commercial.
The way a woman was perceived as beautiful has changed so much even over the last 50 years as I have discussed previously. If we look at Marilyn Monroe and compare her to Tyra Banks, who has made it her passion in life to stretch the definition of beauty (Pozner, 2013) the difference is uncanny. Marilyn Monroe is the most acclaimed sex icon of the 1950’s and she was not astonishingly slender. Meanwhile Tyra banks up until a couple years ago had always been immeasurably skinny. Women nowadays are required to be excessively skinny, toned, tall, and have flawless skin if they want to fit into the “most beautiful” column. Although Tyra Banks presumably believes that she is an exceptional advocate for young girls in the media, she is also delivering a skewed image of self-love through her show, America’s Next Top Model (Pozner, 2013). Every woman on that show either fits the media’s standard of an ideal woman, or they are ridiculed/questioned. The media is making it impossible to achieve such high standards. Even for black women, there is the stereotype that they have to have huge behinds and appear to be super ghetto like Nicki Minaj; even she received cosmetic surgery to enhance her bust and rear, as well as slimming her waist. She did all these things to appease her viewers. It is impossible for women to achieve these different standards
Sex is everywhere in our society. It is on TV, magazines, radio, billboards, and basically anywhere you look today. People cannot 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.
The media can also use sex and sexuality to sell products. By using this approach, the media are essentially selling status or popularity, not just products. They use the allure of sex to make people insecure and think they need a certain product or they need to look a certain
Advertisements have been featuring sexual images to increase sales since the nineteenth century, and the phrase ‘sex sells’ is so popular even children know it. From cigarettes to soap to underwear to jeans, sex is used to sell everything, and the image of a naked women is one of the most popular examples of this. In the Weyenberg advertisement, the woman is topless and completely uncovered by anything but her own arm, despite the fact that she is selling a shoe. There is no correlation between the object being sold and nudity, they are actually direct opposites, but the company will still use it because they are more likely to sell shoes to men if the advertisement makes them think of sex. This image of women has not changed in the four decades since this advertisement was created, and it is so normalized that most people never stop to think about what is so inherently wrong with that. In 2013, just three years ago, Robin Thicke released a song encouraging rape that was able to sell astronomically well, and then he posted a music video featuring topless women being used as sexual objects that encouraged sales even more, and all because it features women and sex. Both the advertisement from 1974 and the music video from 2013 present women as sexual objects as a way to increase sales of the product, and since they
Throughout history there have been many claims about what is beautiful and what is not on the face and body. America’s idea of beauty in the past changed many times from the fragileness of the Steel-engraving lady to the voluptuousness of the Greek slave. The ideal beauty in America is not so different from the ideal beauty of cultures around the world and follows many of the traditions practiced throughout history. The widespread of advertisement and technology is something that’s said to be the contributing problem to the ideal women phenomenon, but I believe history and trend plays the bigger role.
There are a lots and lots of advertises that contains a bit of exaggeration, sex and a message to make the consumer feel an association going on by using or buying that product. For example, Coors light beer commercial contains a lot of stuff that might get people to feel an association going on if he or she drinks that Coors light beer. On one of the Coors light beer commercial, there's a commercial that shows couple of young man and woman drinking Coors light beer and playing volleyball up on the Rocky mountains. A lot of people especially the people around their 20's would be convinced that if he or she drinks Coors light beer, then they could enjoy the coolness of being young and active. Since the commercial contains both sex, it would refer to the people aroun...