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!
11 comments:
Look, ads are created not only for products to sell but for many more reasons that may depends on the company and their choices. It could be to catch the eyeball of the consumers, brand visibility,just to mark their presence in the market and may be thousands of more.
So, if Maaza is having katrina kaif with such sexual gestures, there ad maker/company may be looking for more than just ad leading customers to buy product 'DIRECTLY'
Super article sir!!
Marketers I think are making a dangerous assumption that increasing eye ball to an add leads to creating awareness to their brand.
Which is not true all the time.
Marketers I think are making a dangerous assumption that increasing eye ball to an add leads to creating awareness to their brand.
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But we don't know if a particular ad is for creating brand awareness or something else. Purpose could be various. I think we are focusing too much on the objective of the ad as per our own perceptions
True words sir... Sex vehicle will take the viewer/consumer beyond the limits at a greater velocity which leaves them much beyond the exact stations where the consumers should land...
Very thoughtful article.
The idea of using "Sex" or any other emotions in advertisement emerges out from a specific document in our ad industry which is known as "Communication brief".
( CB )
This document is the most important material most of the times a page in length.
Just to expand the thought as there are lots of discussion on "Axe", the CB for Axe was,
" This Man/boy -viewer- thinks about women a lot,
a lot lot."
He himself knows that he can never get such girls but the dreams are the places where he interact with her"
As Mr. Rama Santhanagopalan rightly pointed, Axe is a Male only brand, the idea was to get into the fantasy of the Man/Boy..
Keep up the great Work.
Hi Sir
Your article is very true. But as Mr. Azad has pointed out is having a sexual gestures in an ad for cool drink is doing wonders for the brand. I would say not.
Sex theme advertising can be used for products that strikes a cord in the customers mind between the sexual arousal and the product that is advertised. Instead just strewing around your communication with sexual scenes hoping that your brand gets connected to customer's mind because of that is a huge expectation as Mr. Sampath said.
Apart from this, I think its high time we have a board to monitor the ad films that are showed in the TV. The last I heard there is no censor ship board even for Tele serials or Television programs. So they can get away with showing and talking anything in the TV.
More than Marketing and Advertising I felt that this is the just a hint to show how our culture is getting spoiled.
dear anon,
define culture? do's & don'ts? it possibly among the most vague statements i've heard in advertising, along with "no is listening the consumer", "consumers are not fools", "why should we say sale in a sale ad".
Cool post sir...once again..whatever the tactics or emotions these people use..its all about making the advertisement on top of the mind of the consumer..and the recent era of advertising with ideology of sex in advertisement has worked to a extent that these ads are atleast noted for its sexual appeal either on a positive or negative sides..whatever it may be..the product gets registerd in the mind of audience which is the ultimate goal advertisers work on for.
@ Mr.Karthik
Rather than commenting on people u can be much more clearer on ur statement so that everyone can understand.,and it ll be easy for me too to reply to your question
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