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<p>An ongoing controversy concerns sex in advertising: does “sex sell”? Acadmics, in large part, have concluded that it doesn’t, but marketing practitioners continue to use sex appeals, suggesting they do work. The authors of this research flashlight (page 54) reveal that both sides are partly right and partly wrong. They took advantage of a technique that allowed them to tap into consumers’ “gut” reactions to advertisements, and in doing so found clear differences in who did and did not like sex appeals. </p>
</abstract>

An ongoing controversy concerns sex in advertising: does “sex sell”? Acadmics, in large part, have concluded that it doesn’t, but marketing practitioners continue to use sex appeals, suggesting they do work. The authors of this research flashlight (page 54) reveal that both sides are partly right and partly wrong. They took advantage of a technique that allowed them to tap into consumers’ “gut” reactions to advertisements, and in doing so found clear differences in who did and did not like sex appeals.

Common “Wisdom” Put to the Test: Sex in advertising … only on Mars and not on Venus?

Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Canada,

Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, USA,

School of Business and Management, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong

NIM Marketing Intelligence Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

An ongoing controversy concerns sex in advertising: does “sex sell”? Acadmics, in large part, have concluded that it doesn’t, but marketing practitioners...

Common “Wisdom” Put to the Test: Sex in advertising … only on Mars and not on Venus?

Published Online: Jul 19, 2014

Page range: 54 - 57

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/gfkmir-2014-0089

© 2014

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.