Over Exposure to Sex in Commercials Term Paper

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Exposure to Sex in Commercials

The adage, "sex sells," is nothing new, in fact, more than a century ago advertisers were using women in advertising campaigns for tobacco and soaps (Erotic pp). During the 1940's, George Petty became famous with his Petty girls, who were so popular in advertising for bathing attire and cigarettes that students at Princeton University selected Petty as their favorite artist in 1947, while Rembrandt came in second (Erotic pp). The sexual revolution of the 1960's became a catalyst for the use of sexual and erotic ads for just about anything and everything (Erotic pp). In 1966, Swedish model and former Miss Sweden, Gunilla Knutson, appearing in a television commercial for shaving cream encouraged men to "take it all off" to the tune of David Rose's popular hit "The Stripper" (Erotic pp). This ad created enormous attention and heralded in a new era for sex in advertising (Erotic pp). Calvin Klein was one of the first to push the envelope when it came to sex in advertising with his 1980 jeans campaign using 15-year-old Brooke Shields who said, "Nothing come between me and my Calvins" (Erotic pp). Today, there are thousands of ads that have a sexual and erotic flavor, however, many believe that eroticism is overused in the media (Erotic pp).

Richard Taflinger who teaches at the Edward R. Murrow School of Communication at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, says that sex is the second strongest of the psychological appeals, right behind self-preservation, and its strength is biological and instinctive (Taflinger pp). Since the purpose of advertising is to convince the public that they need these products, and to do it in a short time span or limited space (Taflinger pp). Sometimes, ads will use innuendo and double entendre in the copy, says Taflinger, who recalls a recent ad with the headline, "You can't win if you don't stick it in," which clearly was a connotation of sexual activity (Taflinger pp). However, the ad was actually promoting voting and carried an illustration of a hand putting a ballot in a box (Taflinger pp). According to Taflinger, using sex as a selling tool is not necessarily wrong if it is used biologically, however, if used culturally, it is wrong (Taflinger pp).

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For a male, the only criteria a female must meet is to be sexually arousing, nothing else is important, yet, for a female, arousal is not as important as receptiveness (Taflinger pp). In the human cultural world, this dichotomy between male and female views of sex often causes friction, as men regard women as "sex objects," and women find men as "insensitive louts" (Taflinger pp). Thus, the use of sex in advertising is a double-edged sword, because humans live in a social world, and consideration must be given to feelings, therefore, advertising that uses sex appeal must be carefully aimed and tastefully done to ensure that appealing to one sex is not offending the other (Taflinger pp).

The advertising and marketing research firm, Gallup & Robinson, reports that in more than fifty years of testing advertising effectiveness, it has found the use of the erotic to be a significantly above-average technique in communicating with the marketplace (Sex pp). Post-advertising sales response studies reveal that sex in advertising is very effective for attracting immediate interest, holding that interest, and introducing a product that somehow correlates with that interest (Sex pp).

Perhaps the most recent television ad to spark controversy concerning its sexual content is the new burger ad featuring Paris….....

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