Blog Marco

Have we been sold the biggest lie? Who coined the catchphrase Sex Sells? Who knows... but whenever we see an advertisement displaying something sexual we always attribute it to that one magic catchphrase "Sex Sells". But in reality sex doesn't sell.

Paris Hilton Sells Burgers; Pole Dancing Mum sells Chickens

We've seen advertisers the world over use sex to sell things that aren't even close to being sexual. We've got Miller light beer being sold with a catfight, a streetfair in San Francisco being marketed with a Mockup of the Last Supper and Sex Toys, Nando's (an Australian advertisment for a Portugese chicken restaurant) tried their hand with a pole dancing Mum enjoying a family meal at the restaurant, GoDaddy with their sexy girls (the Internet Registrar) and Carl's Jr. the burger joint (which are also called Hardee's on the East Coast of USA) - they were the one's responsible for the advertising campaign with Paris Hilton soaping a car in a sexy bathing suit while she was eating a hamburger. Even eBayers were getting into sexy advertising when they were selling Playstation 3 last year.

"Sex is the second strongest of the psychological appeals, right behind self-preservation. Its strength to reproduction is biological and instinctive, the genetic imperative (Dr Richard Taflinger, 1996)."

Sex... Doesn't Work Any Longer

In the October 2004, The Economist published a "Sex doesn't sell" article where agencies noticed that sex began to lose shock value. TBWA, the agency behind the FCUK logo for the French Connection clothing brand noticed the shift back then. Andrew McGuinness, the agency's chief executive said that, "There has been a shift. We went through an era where sex was a means of shocking consumers, and that doesn't work any longer." When this theory was tested by CIM, only 6 percent were positively influenced by sexual images in advertising. Allison O'Keefe Wright an editor for a report called D_code, which studies young consumers had said that "In the past a brand could use sexual imagery to grab a young person's attention, now it's just part of the background. Subtle cues and suggestions are much more powerful.” Nostalgia, too is growing, stoked by fears of terrorism and war: Playful, child-like imagery is having a lot of impact."

Besides the fact that the advertisers are insulting the majority of the population and perhaps alienating a portion of their target market; but the male portion of their target demographic are loving these advertisements. They can remember the advertisement, what was in it and even talk about it with their circle of friends. The problem is in recall - they often forget the product being marketed. The sexy advertising got their attention, but it didn't sell them anything except a dream.

Sex Sells Experiment

Enough of the sex marketing theory. I decided to do my own little test. If sex really does sell, I would getting a lot of conversions and a lot of money, right? Wrong. I did get the views, I got the attention, but I failed part two: conveying the message to the right audience. Here it is: Two versions of a forex video; one in a corporate suit and another in a bikini. One with noticeably lower views than the other. After two weeks of being online the ratio from corporate to bikini views was 80:758! The conversion rate wasn't anything to boast about. I was converying the wrong message to the target audience and delivering another message to an audience who wasn't interested about forex.

Corporate Version: (80 views as of 14th October 2007)

Bikini Version: (758 views as of 14th October 2007) (Watch more Bikini Forex Videos)

Effective Advertising Needs to Communicate a Message

To be effective, advertising needs to grab your attention and communicate that all important message. All that these sexy advertisements accomplish is the first step. The only times sex would sell is when there is a link between sex and the actual product. We're looking at products of attraction like beauty products and perfume. Then those products that just are inextricably linked with sex like men's magazines, sex toys, condoms and erectile dysfunction drugs.

Of course, using the 'Sex Sells' marketing technique certainly would attact a lot of controversy. The controversy would create a lot of talkback, a lot of public criticism and generate a lot of PR. But is the consequent free PR from the media worth the effort? Controversy in the advertising would win the agency the awards, but does it help the client sell their product/service? Having the controversy focused on the advertisement wins the content of the advertisement and not the product; therefore the controversy should be centrally focused on the product. We're talking about products that break records, are outstanding in some way that would attract the targetted audience.

Does sex sell? Of course it does: it sells sex. But sex doesn't sell beer, hamburgers or forex for that matter.

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