Sex Sells

March 5, 2008 on 3:55 pm | In Advertising, Creative, Creativity, Marketing | 3 Comments

 

It is official, sex sells and creatives know this. Observe the ad above. Those are balloons, artfully arranged, but balloons nonetheless. Have you ever noticed how often you see ads like this with a subliminal sexual message? Sometimes, as in the ad above, it is not so subliminal.

Check out this series of ads and this series of ads if you need more convincing. Do you have any thoughts on the ethics of using sexual imagery to sell a product? Weigh in.

Other Posts Of Interest

  • http://www.getsocialpr.com/ Rodger D. Johnson

    Ethics, that’s become such an interesting topic. There’s this ethical movement so dubbed “situational ethics.” Basically that’s a way of fitting ethics to a situation, instead of fitting a situation to an ethic.

    But do I appreciate sexuality as a persuasive tool. Absolutely! Bernay’s campaign to motivate women to smoke was very sexual, sensual too. I don’t think, however, that sex sells without it being sensually appealing.

  • James

    I would hesitate to call the balloon image above subliminal. Its hard to make out the company promoting the image, but the tag “Stop the Virus, not the party” implies some kind of condom manufacturer, in which case they are in a way selling sex with sex.
    The linked list is right on though. Sex in advertising can be clever and interesting if done correctly. What turns me off is when companies think they can just slap a bunch of tits in their campaign and call it good advertising.

  • http://www.my-creativeteam.com Harry Hoover

    Agreed, James. Sensual and subliminal is one thing. Sleaze is another.

Powered by WordPress with Pool theme design by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds. Valid XHTML and CSS. ^Top^