Does Sex Sell?

Yes, Freud would throw a party and write another book which would probably be called “Practical guide to male complexes.”

During internet research about this topic I found many interesting facts about eroticism in advertising, so I will write few articles about this topic.

Eroticism and sex are used in today's advertising everywhere. If advertising is the engine of commerce, then various sexual motives is the engine of advertising. Sexual advertising influences our biological instincts and evokes strong emotions. It is considered that this helps to increase sales.
Look at this Samsung's advert. It uses one of the basic psychological methods of advertising business – provoking of conditioned reflex.

Sexual instinct is one of the most powerful biological stimulants. Connecting it with a neutral object you can achieve amazing advertising results. Most of men and a lot of women like to see pretty young girls. It evokes positive emotions. These positive emotions that we experience looking at nice pretty girls is automatically transferred to the logo of well-known brand, which is modestly situated in the top left corner of the advert. It is so called “halo effect” well known in psychology and advertising industry. After seeing this kind of advert numerous times (probably even in different medias), the conditioned reflex will be preserved and kept in you subconsciousness. Very soon you will forget about the pretty girls from the picture and will never recall about them. But, sooner or later, you will come to a shop and will see the familiar logo on one of the products… and your reaction to this product will be a priori positive, so that you will be more likely to purchase this brand and not it's competitor.

It doesn't mean that some Mr. Smith, after seeing this advert for 50 times will be sexually attracted to a Samsung DVD player and won't be able to control his emotions if he sees Samsung logo on the window display of a nearby consumer electronics store. It's just that Mr. Smith for some mysterious reason that he himself cannot understand, will prefer Samsung labelled products. They will awaken positive emotions and will be associated with something nice, light, sexual and attractive… Our conditioned reflexes are at place and working properly for the benefit of advertisers. The connection does work: familiar logo à recollection of something positive, attractive, nice (pretty women) à positive emotions + positive reaction (purchase). 

In next article I will tell you more about gender differences and perception of this kind of commercials.

Ziga Anzlovar