Sex Sells, but Should It?
Trina L.C. Sonnenberg
I wish someone could explain to me the mentality of advertising. I understand marketing and advertising, as that is my business, but I don't understand television commercials of today. If they aren't assuming that we are stupid, they assume that we are all sex maniacs.
Sex has been used to sell just about everything, except baby food, (acne cream to razor blades)it isn't a new thing, but what gets me is that it has become acceptable to advertise phone sex, porno movies, like 'Girls Gone Wild' and sexual aids, but it is illegal, or wrong to advertise cigarettes on television. Once upon a time, the only alcoholic beverage ads were for beer, and they almost always inferred that you would become a chick-magnet if you drank a certain brand, or that you'd stay skinny and sexy if you did, but now all forms of alcohol are advertised on TV.
We don't want our kids to drink, smoke or be promiscuous, but we advertise alcohol and sexual enhancement drugs on TV all of the time. Of all these, poor Camel Joe, was the only one picked on and told to keep away from our kids. Why? What makes one more acceptable than the other?
I just saw an ad for tennis shoes that depicted a man and a woman of fit status, and fame exercising nude, save for their shoes. What is up with that? They blurred the mans penis and the woman's breasts, but so what. We all have imaginations.
All that says to me is that the shoes aren't worth the money, if they have to use that sort of tactic to promote them. Personally, I am sick and tired of having to explain sexual enhancement ads to my 12 year-old, and heaven forbid that he sneak to the TV when the porno and phone sex ads come on. (When my husband and I are asleep.)
What has happened to morality and teaching our children by example? How will the next generation grow up if they are led to believe, through our example, that we are all sex maniacs, who need pills to have good sex? What happened to that being a conversation between a man and his doctor? When I was growing up (80's) you'd never see an ad for birth control on television, and girls found tampon commercials embarassing.
Come on... using sex to sell shoes. That has to be an all time low.
Copyright © 2010
The Trii-Zine Ezine
About the Author:
Trina L.C. Sonnenberg
Publisher - The Trii-Zine Ezine - Your Trusted Source for Internet Business and Marketing Information. EST 2001. ISSN# 1555-2276
Author of: My Journey A Lifetime of Verse, ISBN: 978-0-61516405-2
Comments
We are sending conflicting messages to our youth. Don't be promiscuous, but buy our birth control devices and sex toys, and give your boyfriend Viagra. Don't drink, but if you drink this brand, you'll be sexier. Don't indulge in pornography, but here is all the crap your eyeballs can stand. Double standards aren't right. Don't do these things, but it is okay for me to do them.
I happen to think that the only reason that cigarette ads have been banned from TV and the others haven't is because Adult America is trying to become smoke free, but not sex or booze free. Adult America loves to watch porn, and get drunk. Probably because they need to get drunk to have sex. Insurance companies won't cover birth control, but they will pay for Viagra. There is something seriously wrong with that.
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