Weekly Written Analysis 5: Sex in Advertising

Over the years sex or sexual innuendo in advertising seems to appear more often than not. You see it in deodorant and body spray commercials where hundreds of women are chasing a man after he has put some of the deodorant on. Or how about the gum commercials that show two teenagers that start making out right in front of the girl's parents after they start chewing the gum? A memorable car commercial that I have seen has a woman that is just getting off work changing from a suit into sports attire in an elevator full of people, then she runs out and jumps into her friends car and they speed off down the road. Now I know the manufacturers of these products couldn't really think that anyone would buy their products just because they have seen these commercials and expect to get the same results as the actors in them so I think it must be a ploy to peak our interest so that we will pay more attention to these advertisements instead of just flipping to another channel during a commercial break of one of our shows.

A study was conducted by two individuals from the University College London on 60 young adults that proved otherwise. One of the purposes of the study was to find out if a commercial could be recalled more easily if it had some sort of sexual content in it (Economist 2007). The 60 adults were placed into 4 groups, 2 of which were shown commercials with sexual content between the show "Sex in the City" and another show that didn't have any sexual content called "Malcolm in the Middle". It was found that there was no significant difference between the groups in being able to recall the commercials or the product that was advertised in them regardless of the sexual content (Economist 2007). So it was concluded after the study that sex doesn't really sell after all. I on the other hand still find it hard to believe that sex doesn't sell and that sexual appeal has no effect on the popularity of a product. If that was the case then my question is still "Why is there still so much sex in advertisement?", and why was I able to remember these commercials in order to write this analysis?

Reference
The big turn off. (2007, March 3). Economist, Retrieved March 20, 2008, from Academic Search Complete database.