Marketers have always liked making ads that evoke feelings – be it the warm and fuzzy, cute and cuddly kind or the standard ones – that evoke humour, fear or the oldest feeling among them all – sex.
Sex in advertising certainly arouses; but does it arouse an interest to buy? Well, that’s been a moot point.
Sure, there have been a few brands, here and there, that might have used sex in their advertising to succeed, but in general, most marketing theorists and academicians agree sex doesn’t sell – apart from the ones that certain women sell for a living!
But of late, did you notice, quite a few Indian ads have been oozing with sex. Not as blatant as it might get in porn films, but certainly flirting with different shades of it. It ranges from the blatant use of couples kissing in Close Up ads to the undressing of a bride in the Zatak ad to girls feeling their essentials in a few other ads that I find difficult to recall now.
Well, that is one of the problems of using sex in advertising. The consumer remembers the flesh, fizz and frivolous in the ad and not as much the brand name itself.
There who belong to the ‘sex works in advertising’ school of thought, quote Axe to support their point. Agreed, Axe uses sex. But is it in their advertising?
Think. Axe promises sexual attraction, as their positioning platform. Period. Except in one or two of their ads, by and large, Axe doesn’t showcase blatant sex in their advertising. They are smartly left to the viewers’ imagination.
Wouldn’t you agree that’s a smarter thing to do? And more sexier too!
