Its no secret that sex sells. Today sex and sexual material is everywhere in mass media and there is no way to avoid it. Advertisers put sex in their advertising to capture the attention of the many people who are drawn to the word in itself. When viewers read sex in the media they're usually looking for either beautiful women or handsome men which serves as bait to lure in consumers. Take, for example, the sports illustrated swimsuit edition calendar. Every year this calendar extra sells millions of copies. But what is it that is so appealing to readers? It is simply the sex appeal. Men in their teens and early twenties are the predominant demographic that the calendar caters to. With no writing and high resolution color photographs of scantily clad women, the calendar has very little to offer, except for visual pleasure. On January 8th, Adweek.com posted an articled called “Hefty Is Now Sexing Up Garbage Men.” The article is about the recent commercial for hefty ultimate bags. As stated in the article, the commercial is about “super sexy garbage men in tight shirts that drop all sorts of weird innuendos that make zero sense when discussing garbage bags.” One of the garbage men say "And that gripping drawstring? So tight.” As the housewife behind him is making awkward expressions of arousal. This commercial grabs the attention of women because they use attractive muscular men even though the commercial is an attempt to sell “unsexy” products.
This example is not limited to just the sports illustrated calendar and the hefty commercial, it is expressed in media everywhere. This type of advertising is most commonly used to grab hold the attention of men, but is still used for women too. As you can see attractive men are used to get attention of women, and attractive women are used to get attention of men. There are some people who feel uncomfortable to sex in advertising, but it still has proven to be a topic of very high interest, bringing in all sorts of viewers for its various reasons.
Reporting for Digital Citizen this is Darianne Cardino
No comments:
Post a Comment