Gone are the days when we used to go red while watching the bare back of a pretty girl luxuriating with a bar of soap. Today, sex sells and it’s full on in our lives, in our bedrooms and all the way to the burger we eat to the coffee we drink! So is sex really that necessary to sell everything? Clay Coral thinks aloud.
What do you call an advertisement that oozes sex appeal? A sleazy wanna-catch-your-eye bleeper? Or perhaps, we’d just have to call it a brilliant ad.
I’ve never actually been able to resist holding fort on a sexy Axe Effect ad even when I’m trying to beat the world record for the fastest channel surfing.
Nor have I been able to overlook a great beer ad with sweating women, or that ad with a beautiful, saucy woman in a sexy outfit, can’t remember the product though! Not that I’m complaining here.
Sex sells the whole world
Today, the world doesn’t revolve around its axis, it completely revolves around sex.
All those who believe otherwise, probably are nudists. Those people who just love skipping on clothes and walking around in the buff and yet don’t feel a teensy weensy bit of apprehension about the shortcomings and ‘longcomings’ of their assets. Well, that’s just my theory. You have yours. I have mine.
We’re always trying to mix sex with everything. Cocktails, marathons, beaches… and even when we’re travelling on planes and buses, for crying out loud! It seems like whatever we do, it leads us to the realm of sex. Eventually. Some way or the other. We think about it all the time. This is an issue that will always be hot stuff for as long as we last on earth. Get realistic here, the day we get bored of sex would obviously be the day we carve our own damn pretty place in the land of extinction!
All of us think about sex all the time!
Everyone can be an iconoclast or accept positive paradox if the debate is about sex. Humans are never tired of planning and making excuses to have sex anywhere. And oh yes, anytime.
While we’re vacationing, we search playfully or frantically for a cozy secluded spot to have a quickie. “Oh! There’s a huge boulder, how about that? It looks cozy… Baby… That would definitely make our vacation last a lifetime in our fantasyland if we did it!”
Drift away now, talk about a romantic dinner. Where does a candlelight dinner lead to? Even as we talk about food, there’s sex at the back of our minds. All those juicy strawberries, whipped cream and chocolates taste so much better in bed. How about some ice-cream then? We’re ever interested in aphrodisiacs whenever we want to satisfy our palate.
We shuffle the stores for products to increase our libidos, even if it’s at an all time high. Just FYI, oysters rock. Not just as a high fashion statement in a fancy restaurant, but even in bed. And then, there’s the fascinating prairie oyster. Let’s not even get there, unless you’re interested in bull testicles. Okay, we’re going nowhere here…
We spend so much time talking about new positions to try, new toys to order and new methods to learn. What is tantric sex? ‘Kamasutra’ is like the freaking-shrieking bible nowadays. How about joining the Mile High Club on this flight? A boy gets his jollies up if his highway love decides to play with gears and reaches out for the ‘wrong’ shaft. And which girl wouldn’t like a bit of Morse code games that go ‘mmm m mm’ just south, in the car somewhere on the highway. Or would that just be the highway to heaven?
Well connected people change partners like their wardrobe. We earn to get more sex. It is the greatest luxury most of us, if not all of us (liars!) want to indulge in. Girls drool at well dressed men. And why the hell does a man need to dress up well, in Hugo Boss and Senor D’Orsi? Probably because he wanted to invite a hot gold-digger (not!) to his apartment.
Sexy conversations
In offices, we men ogle at sexy secretaries in short skirts trying to impress their boss, who of course, wears Hugo (I wonder why!). All this must increase productivity, who knows? Guys watch with such devotion, with their mouth open wide, when they find an intimate couple mushing up (perverts) or a sex tape in their closet.
They scramble around to catch the latest voyeur video with reality content about sex. Surf the net and we will discover infinite explicit sex-oriented websites. Naked ladies are flashed everywhere. Check out Youtube’s viewer counts if you don’t believe me. We just have to click and join the genre. A woman wearing a bikini hiding just a few inches of her modesty never fails to draw awe.
Nipple slips and wardrobe malfunctions are talked about more feverishly than politics or the green revolution. Heck, even PETA needs big boobs and hot hineys to get the message across!
Clothes have got shorter these days. It’s more about revealing than concealing now. At least now and then. Think about it. A girl prances in tight tic-tac holding tank tops and hot pants that barely cover her derriere at a Saturday night party. Alpha males and the lesser kind stare without blinking because their primal instincts are provoked. And let’s not even get to talking about wearing revealing clothes in office.
Girls sell sex too!
On the other hand, girls can’t stop talking about sex too. They’re attracted to members of their same sex too. If that girl is beautiful and oozing with sex appeal. Please tell me that’s true!
They check things out too, just like men. Like when they see an underwear male model with a sculptured body good enough to run around in ‘300′.
The feminist revolution is in full bloom and sex has become extremely predominant. No complaints here at all.
“Sex sells so well”
This must be the coolest cliché of all time. The capitalist world has grown out of context, there are so many products that are launched everyday and there’s cutthroat competition in the doggie marketing world. To sell their products, they have to rely on the most effective agenda.
And what’s more eligible than sex? With advertising becoming an extremely persuasive, pervasive and omnipresent industry, we are pampered by promotional presentations of hot, spicy, sizzling and sensual pictures and captions in commercials that has invaded and infiltrated every known media of today. It wasn’t the products on reference, it was about the influence and impact the phenomenon has on society.
Using sex to sell
After a brand autopsy, the verdict is loud and clear. The three-letter word means business. Big business. The original sin that made this world, runs it too. And without it, everything seems dull. Some say it is natural and that’s why it works. Is that why sex has been an integral part of grabbing attention, because it sells? Sex sells almost everything on earth. It is the most effective mantra for success and it always delivers. It is loud and clear and in your face.
Sexually suggestive images to promote and eventually sell just about everything prove that it is a merchandiser’s favorite tool. We are always sure to come across naughty skimpily dressed models at a product launch every day. They are the main attraction and efficient brand ambassadors and any marketing honcho cannot ignore the significance. You go, you Redbull girls!
Increased tolerance, reliable censorship, stupendous developments and increasing buying power of appreciative target groups in markets have led to a marked increase in using sex as the theme. No one can run away from it. But hey, would you want to?
You should turn on your tube and watch a flick, a video for instance, then you’d probably get the idea. Let’s take a little walkathon into the product world to check some samples as examples. One of the most popular advertising campaigns was that of the Victoria’s Secret Angels lingerie. I doubt if there are any secrets left. It’s sensible for products like lingerie or even men’s cologne, liquor and some other stuff to have a sexual theme for promotions, but there were other innumerable items using the same subject without any relation whatsoever. Whatsoever!
Sex in the wrong place?
On scene. There was a hot model in a red bikini standing beside a brand new sports car posing and pouting for the shutter bugs, and the people around just couldn’t avoid glancing at her. A few men had tissues under their mouths. What’s she got to do with the car?
Another topless model was holding a milk-shake container between her breasts. That leaves us confused. Which one do we look at, the jug? Or the jugs?! With the same posture was an extremely saucy naked lady with well tanned skin holding a beer bottle and the line was ‘shake it baby!’ Seriously, what could that mean? Why would I want to shake a beer bottle? Or is that Duke Nukem’s line?
Sex in the movies
From food to fashion, movies to music videos, drinks to dishes, automobiles to electronics, papers to perfumes and books to bars, what are we left with, where sex stays out of the picture? A hot, steamy explicit sex scene turns an actress into a super celeb overnight. Who cared about the story while watching Sharon Stone uncrossing her legs commando inciting the investigators in the classic “Basic Instinct”?
That was one of the hottest and most famous Turkish leg crossers I’ve seen in any movie in the history of main-stream cinema. Nobody could forget the sex scenes involved even if we failed to recollect the plot after seeing a thousand reruns. Yeah, the story was supportive too. Whatever. The movie became a blockbuster and made Ms. Stone one of the highest paid actors and an American sex symbol. Her name became synonymous to Hollywood. That was just a piece of the pie.
Sexy revealing fashion
Internationally, supermodels setting the ramp on fire with only their bare basics, sometimes in attire that would make you blush in private, are a daily dose in the fashion and entertainment industry. The lesser they wear, it results exponentially proportional to the magnitude of success for that particular product that’s promoted.
Their bodies are goldmines, a money minting institution. All they did was flaunting their assets. The abundance of bare skin is a desperate attempt to give redundant products a new identity while making their Swiss accounts swell. If there was a wardrobe malfunction, be sure to catch it in the breaking news sections.
Sex makes brands
Tramps become brands, and money flows like wine, and the best part, the theme works both ways. The models get their publicity and exposure to fame and fortune. The proprietors get their investments worth as the products are sold. Many years ago, I watched a video where there were semi-nude dancers shaking booties and bosoms. Even the female singers hardly wore anything as they crooned. One of the girl’s nipples stuck out so hard it could piece right through a wall! Maybe that makes their voices sweeter. Or more Spicy, Girls?
Remember that Calvin Klein ad featuring Mark Wahlburg and Kate Moss? She managed to forget her top in her shoot. And we never missed that shot. That was legendary and who regretted it? She became one of the most successful models of all time.
Another naked woman had milk splashed all over her breasts in a health benefit ad campaign and it was displayed everywhere in Canada. Who will say ‘no’ to milk now?
Sex and advertising
PETA promoted the cause with stars preferring to be nude rather than wearing fur or animal skin and nobody stops them. Who can ever forget that infamous Paris Hilton ad? She was in a bikini washing a Bentley while eating a Carl’s Jr. burger. One should try that, eating grease dripping burger and washing a car.
Have you noticed that Yves Saint Laurent poster promoting a perfume named Opium? I couldn’t find the slightest image of the product but there was this female model, stark naked grasping her breasts with her hands in an excited stance. What does that picture have to do with the perfume? Huh! Who cares? You had opium.
As I groped around deeper, I managed to find a lot more of those sensational ads. Some were old but they were still screaming sexy.
I stumbled on a Sony ad poster with a pretty woman naked waist up standing by a window and an equally exposed male behind her. If someone could tell me the connection between the music player and this act of fornication, I would definitely be glad.
I had a laugh when I saw the Volvo car ad with the hand brake pointing upwards resembling an erect male member. They seem to believe ‘sex sells best’. The next in line was an Aprilia scooter newspaper ad dominated by a huge naked butt staring directly at me and two hands trying to measure the width with an inch tape. We get it. It all makes sense, really! Who could miss that butt? I strained my eyes and there was a tiny photo of the scooter on the right hand side. Almost invisible.
And then, there was another sexciting ad about an Italian coffee brand that caught my attention. It had a nude model pressing her big jugs against a bare chest of a man in a pool of coffee beans. Does coffee make you think about sex? That’s news to me. After that, I came across that famous puma campaign in which a lady’s kneeling to get access to a boy’s pants indicating a blowjob in progress and there was some kind of fluid on her thigh. Beep! I’ll say no more.
The array is endless. Sex is used everywhere from the iPad to the PlayStation, napkins to toilet papers, cosmetics to candies, lingerie and men’s underwear, massage parlors to private dancers, and even divorce attorneys and real estate! What’s sex got to do with real estate… now really!
And sports aren’t spared either. Should we care if a hot tennis star wins a grand slam, after judging her assets in every kind of promotional campaign? We just want to see Anna Kournikova play again, and say “only the balls must bounce!”
If you still need another word of confirmation, you ought to watch Ana Ivanovic, the Serbian tennis ace or Maria Sharapova, the stunning Russian grand slam winner scorching the screens.
The sex sells formula
Why does the ‘sex sells’ formula work? It excites us, arouses us and ignites our passion and at last, makes us notice the products. It was implanted in our genes. Sex sells because we are human and sex is the most important part of our lives. We can run but we can never hide. It is an excellent instructor, and is the most powerful and efficient marketing tool.
Of course, it incites immediate interest too. The purpose of advertisements is to inform, convince people about a particular product one way or the other, and sex is the best bet to hold on to someone’s goldfish-memory span. There is never a saturation point when you introduce sex into that concept.
A naked girl sells more men’s products than an enthusiastic salesman with the gift of the gab. Who isn’t interested in sex? So it really is true that sex sells everything. It never fails to draw us like moth to a flame. If we run out of ideas, we should just leave it to sex. That’ll do the trick. That’s the best choice, hardly any of us have differences on that subject. Now we can change the cliché that sex sells like hot cakes to sex sells more than hot cakes, in fact it did sell the cake too! Not vice versa.
The verdict? Sex is here to stay as long as we last on earth. Protests? Are you mad? I’m not complaining. No one cares what you think anyways.
Who can forget Gail Wynand’s words in the Fountainhead, “Sex First, Tears Second. Make them itch and make them cry. And you’ve got them.”
