Sex remains on top
of advertising ploys
by Ashley Sheffield
reporter
Dating back to the ’50s, companies have used sex to sell products.
Coca-Cola has even used women holding Coke bottles in their posters to boost sales since the turn of the century. What it is about a woman holding a Coke bottle that makes the product more appealing? Does it honestly make people thirst for Coke?
Women represent sex, and sex has continued to be a major part in advertising throughout the years.
Thinking about the commercials on television, I’m sure half of them relate in some way to sex. Take your basic cologne ads. Almost all the commercials for perfumes or colognes try to make the viewers believe the product will make it easy for them to attract a person of the opposite sex.
How ridiculous is this? Even Ice Breaker gum commercials show men and women kissing all over each other.
Another example of using sex to sell is Abercrombie ads. Have you ever been in an Abercrombie store and not seen pictures of half-naked people? The store sells clothes, not naked bodies. Even the catalogs for the clothing store are x-rated.
Other clothing lines closely relate to this same form of marketing. If not by producing x-rated catalogs, most show commercials or posters with boys and girls hugging each other.
Sex shows up in a variety of commercials and advertisements. Commercials for furniture most often have a beautiful woman as the spokeswoman, or maybe a mattress ad shows a man and woman cuddled up in bed.
Do people actually think that a certain mattress is going to help their love life? Apparently, some people really do, or the companies would stop such advertising tactics.
From 1950 Coca-Cola commercials to 2004 Sealy mattress ads, sex has been a major part of advertisement. This strategy obviously has been the best way for many big name companies to sell their products.
Maybe sex does sell, but why? I guess it is just part of human nature.
Last Updated: 4/14/2004
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