While I have to admit this paper I wrote is much less of a fair examination of both sides to an argument and much more of a rebuttle to the ever-so often quoted business mantra "sex sells", I still think it is compelling and worth a read. Here's a taste. The full paper is after the jump.
Selling Sex: Misplaced Marketing Dollars
Selling
Sex: Misplaced Marketing Dollars
Erotic images intended to
incite intense sexual emotions expose themselves to us daily. Ultimately, marketing managers and
advertising planners everywhere are determined to drive traffic to their
products and increase sales. The purpose
of advertisements is to evoke powerful emotions and link them to products or
services in the consumer’s mind.
Sexuality is a powerful emotion that exists in nearly all humans and is
therefore a natural candidate for advertising messages.
Research on the
effectiveness of sexuality in advertising has been done for more than 30 years,
and for 30 years no conclusive results have been reached. The often uttered phrase, “sex sells”, may
not be as intuitive or obvious as it seems.
Because sexuality in advertising implants negative brand perceptions, distracts
consumers from the ad message, and faces possible censorship, marketers are
misplacing their marketing dollars by selling sex rather than their products.
