Sex Sells in Advertisement

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In 1972, Stephen Marks set out to change the fashion landscape in the United Kingdom when he founded French Connection. The company chiefly distributes its clothing through its own stores, however many other shops and department stores, such as Macy’s, Bloomingdales, and Nordstrom carry its products as well. In 1997, French Connection began labeling its clothes with the letters, FCUK, claiming that it was an acronym for French Connection United Kingdom. Using such slogans as “hot as fcuk” and “lucky fcuk,” French Connection became visible on store fronts, product labels, magazines, and billboards. In 2003, French Connection launched a new print and promotional advertisement campaign entitled “Scent to Bed”. This new and even more provocative advertising campaign would introduce the company’s main target, young adults, to two new fragrances, FCUK Him and FCUK Her. Using an offensive and eye-opening naming strategy, the company attracted many opponents who claimed the ads were encouraging young adolescents to have sex. These claims were partly legitimized when the company continued to run the same sexually suggestive advertisement in publications such as, Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, and Teen People, whose primary reader base consists of girls in their early and middle teenage years. Even though the company claimed that the target market for their new product were men and women consisting of the ages 18-25 years old, it became apparent that it was influencing much younger individuals. French Connection employs sexual and considerably irreverent images and language in their advertisement to draw its customers to its new fragrance. The message in the Scent to Bed advertisement simply combined sexual imagery and text into one ad... ... middle of paper ... ...With the Scent to Bed advertisement, French Connection is able to do just that. From this, it is easy to conclude that sex sells and has the most influential effect in teen generations. Additionally, the use of the color white for the text accentuates the advertisement’s naughty image. The models themselves are dressed in a more revealing way, and look a specific way to draw in the young readers. Even the way the models are positioned in relaxed positioned in the photograph reveals hidden and subtle meaning to the advertisement leaving the interpretation of the ad for the reader. In that sense, the allure of sex and of an attractive member of the opposite sex allows the Scent to Bed advertisement to capture the interest of the reader and motivate them to run to the mall, buy a bottle of FCUK Him or FCUK her, and ultimately go home and get “scent” or sent to bed.

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