This post is in reply to Alyssa Leung’s post detailing sex in marketing through the example of GoDaddy’s recent Superbowl commercial:

The simple answer to her question is… yes. Sex has been perhaps the most predominant tool used in creative advertising over the past few decades. Especially since globalization has put the internet in the palms of every person’s hand and social media such as Facebook and Twitter have exploded. The fact remains that sex, by nature, catches our attention. Human beings, and all reproductive animals, are hard-wired to always want sex. It’s just the way of life.

In today’s age, marketing has become almost 100% about catching the audience’s attention and then flashing the message at the very end of the advertisement to convey the real message. As can be seen by GoDaddy’s ad, the steamy kissing between the two actors has literally nothing to do with Web Hosting, but since it catches the audience’s attention, the results of the Ad were outstanding.

So, no matter what (unless morally wrong), the concept of sex will remain the most commonly used tool in marketing. Period. No other single thing causes us to react more, and that’s just how it is. So the concept of “sexism in advertising” is some what societal more than moral. Obviously society, in general, has some reservations about accepting advertisements that contain outright sexist ideas, but most of the time those ideas are just formulated by speculation. Using the GoDaddy ad as an example once again, the kissing between the two actors is in no way a necessary sexist statement objectifying women. It is simply a tool to attract the audience’s attention, and to no surprise, it catches women’s attention just as much as men’s! This debate may not even stop raging, but the facts remain facts and the numbers speak for themselves.