Sex sells, or so we think.
Hultin and Lundh (2004) interviewed young men and women on their perceived effects of sex in advertising and their opinions on the given products afterwards. Although most of the participants initially claimed that sex in advertising would affect them positively; especially young males, if it was too explicit it caused disgust and the most pronounced negative effects of over-sexualisation were actually found in the group that perceived sex as a good selling point.
Clearly, this advert is overly sexualised and would be likely to disgust as opposed to sell, especially in the target audience; although some researchers claim further research is needed to support this claim (see Reichert, 2002).
Hultin, M. & Lundh, E. (2004). Sex in advertising: How it influences young men and women.
Reichert, T. (2002). Sex in advertising research: a
review of content, effects, and functions of sexual information in
consumer advertising. Annual review of sex research, 13, 241.
Nice work with finding this ad. Did Hultin and Lundh do an experiment? I don't understand what people saw or how over-sexualization was measured.
ReplyDeleteHultin and Lundh used self report questionnaires, over-sexualised was rated by the respondents themselves using target questions.
ReplyDelete