I recently read my classmate Eric’s blog post: Peta . He comments on the new PETA ads, where celebrities support animal rights by posing nude.
All of the ads are also sexually suggestive, because this instantly grabs people’s attention. Many marketers have known that sex sells best for a long time, and have been using this trick to sell products. In fact, a large amount of ads for trendy clothing stores are sexually suggestive (Calvin Klein, Guess, DKNY…etc). I don’t think this is unethical or immoral of the marketers or the companies, because they are using marketing tactics to increase consumer awareness of their products. And it’s definitely true that people will remember an ad that is sexually suggestive versus one that is boring. Using sex to sell products is becoming, or is already a part of our lives. Products that have nothing to do with sex are being sold with sex. For example, here’s a German vacuum company’s ad:
It took me a few seconds to spot the vacuum in the ad.