SEX SELLS; OR DOES IT?

Sex sells is the oldest adage in advertising. We associate sex with mostly everything in today's world.

You see it every single day infiltrating your computer, tv, ipod, and cell phone screens. Plastered on billboards, bus stops, on buses, and the side of buildings. Companies want to tap into your subconscious mind, by displaying this imagery and hoping that it prompts you to associate sex with their products thereby causing you to purchase it.

Go to any of the social networking sites and you will see a bevy of hotties, scantily clad men and women posing, posturing, insinuating sexual things, just to sell unrelated products like real estate, a book, their music, hearing aides, or something so far unrelated to sex as in a product that helps you clean your clothes better, could fail. Abusing your audience's attention is a dangerous thing. Showing skin to get attention and then trying to sell completely unrelated products can be disastrous to say the least.



Does this type of advertising really pay off the dividends that these advertisers whether corporate or individual are expecting?? Some do benefit, but a large majority of others do not. You need to be careful and think how nudity is sufficient towards a targeted market, no matter how free thinking of a society they may be. You need to take into consideration that everyone in that market is not going to see the advertising in the same vain, so focus on what matters to you as a company, the commodity or product you are selling, and how it will affect you in the long run. There are numerous companies that still push the envelope though and fail miserably as witnessed in some of the ads below..