Let’s Talk About Sex
Sex sells labels on the internet…and anywhere really

Ever heard that tongue-twister ‘she sells seashells by the seashore’?
Well here’s a new one for you:
‘Sex sells labels on the internet’
… and anywhere really.
Now before you all start frantically clicking off of this article in a panic, worrying this is the sort of thing one doesn’t really want in their search history, especially if you are using a family computer or laptop — I just want to say do not panic. This is not some sort of insight into the pornography industry.
What is meant by ‘sex sells’ is the notion that any marketing industry or company can simply stick a sexualised image on their campaign poster and boom; commercial success.
Let’s take a look at some examples…
According to professor Tom Reichert, professor and head of advertising and public relations at the UGA Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, “sex sells because it attracts attention. People are hard-wired to notice sexually relevant information, so ads with sexual content get noticed.”
Reichert’s study into sex within advertising found that adverts featuring sexual imagery are most commonly in categories such as clothing, beauty, health, drugs and medicine, travel and entertainment. It also showed that women feature more prominently in adverts of a sexual nature than men.

(We’ve all seen the Coco Chanel and Lancôme television adverts with the physically flawless women and the perfectly chiselled men with minimal clothing and weird flowery pop music and abstract storylines, usually featuring a party and a love affair.)
This isn’t a recent development either; psychologyformarketers.com states that the earliest example of sexual content used in advertising was a Pearl Tobacco packaging cover in 1871, featuring a naked woman. It also claims that the first brands to enter such marketing tactics were tonics, tobacco and saloons.

Psychologyformarketers.com also insists all humans have what they call a ‘lizard’ brain; it is the oldest part of our brain and only pays attention to food, danger and sex.

So, when people see anything sexual, this lizard brain is activated, making it hard to ignore. The website offers advice to marketers on how to use this psychological element to their advantage, indicating that sex is used simply as a device to gain profit, even if the product being sold has little to no sexual nature whatsoever.
This is a Calvin Klein advert for jeans with a sixteen-year-old Brooke Shields:

What’s sexual about jeans?
Nothing. If anything surely a person’s jeans would get overlooked in that sense…
Alas, sex sells.
The purpose of an advertisement is to inform and influence one or more people. How is a picture of a skimpily dressed sixteen-year-old girl informing people on the quality of a pair of jeans?
Would an advert talking about the durable, machine-washable quality on a middle-aged woman rake the same income?
Or what about the Pearl Tobacco cover? What does a picture of a naked woman have to do with Tobacco? Perhaps men would see the naked woman and believe purchasing that tobacco would appease the ideal of toxic masculinity and make woman, such as her, fall at their feet. Then again, they probably just saw the box and bought it for the picture.
Now, another way to look at the techniques that these adverts have used would be to sell an ideal or lifestyle, whether it is sexual or not.
Classic example: perfume adverts.
They are trying to convince their audience that if they rub the scented liquid from this little glass bottle onto their skin they will magically be transformed to look like this…

Or this…

Or this…

It is the same story for men.

Just another way society feeds the black hole that is toxic masculinity and unrealistic beauty and body expectations for women.
In simpler terms — you need to look like you were photoshopped for three hours to use this product, and if you do not then using it will turn you into it, so not to worry.
So what about adverts that are not obviously sexual?
Well, there are some adverts that do not explicitly feature sexual imagery to promote a product or lifestyle.
Some examples, like the Think road safety campaigns — promoting the lifestyle of not being an idiot on the road — certainly do not use sexualisation in their advertising. Although, in some cases, like the one on the left, there are still hints at a sexual nature.

You’d have to be very warped to find this arousing…
In Reichert’s study he found that computer companies, banking businesses and charitable organisations did not feature sexual imagery in their advertising. This could be due to it being inappropriate for charity, and the professional persona that all three aim to display to their target audiences.
Other companies, however, may not instantly be regarded as using sex to sell their products, but the way in which they promote a lifestyle could include hints of sexualisation.
Coca-Cola is amongst the most recognisable brands in the world. Their advertising is fairly memorable — a happy family, with the exception of the iconic Christmas advert, in the summer weather all enjoying it from the glass bottles, usually with upbeat music in the background.
It may not seem too sexual at first — but take a look at this poster.

This French poster reads ‘Coca-Cola, that’s it’.
First of all, the woman is wearing red — red, apart from being the brand’s signature colour, is also associated with danger and lipstick and being a flirtatious colour — the connotations of a ‘red dress’.
Secondly, the fact that she is apparently on a boat on a beautiful ocean wearing minimal clothing. When women see this they are going to associate drinking Coca-Cola with the idea of looking like that woman does on a boat in the summer; it is selling a sexualised lifestyle. As for men, they are not necessarily looking at the poster because they too want to look like that woman dressed in red on a boat loving life.

Therefore, whilst we may not immediately find a company’s advertising as overtly sexual as others, many companies selling a product use this idea of the ‘lizard brain’ to lock our attention and to better their chances of commercial success, whilst in some cases promoting this idea of a romanticised or sexualised lifestyle such as Coca-Cola.
Bibliography:
Tom Reichert and his studies — https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/2649-sex-sells-more.html
Psychologyformarketers.com and Calvin Klein jeans — http://psychologyformarketers.com/sex-and-marketing/

