Sexed Commodities

yep, no doubt about it. Better than a documentary or surely it would have been a mockumentary Will, on a young liberal fella in Hobart trying to get into politics.

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Renee Louise Stunden at 11:01pm May 19 via Facebook Mobile

Anyone can sell sex, its who pays for it thats the sad part.

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Alejandro Molano at 11:39pm May 19

mmmmmmmmmmmm… tell me more…

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Orieta Hevia at 1:24am May 20

it only impacts on the weak minds

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Amanda Jane Wood at 9:12am May 20

you betcha!

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Orieta Hevia at 1:11pm May 20

if sex is used to sell a product it’s because it’s of an inferior quality /and useless and needs anything else to sell it…

Simone — Wed, 20 May 2009 16:14:59 +0000

hehe – a virgin trains add

toothpaste, jelly beans and the truth about biology

Simone — Wed, 20 May 2009 15:53:09 +0000

scary but true.. it’s almost end of semester!! i have really focused my energies for this course on highlighting and commenting on sex in advertising, rather than the broader topic of gender differentiation in marketing which i set off to descontruct in the begining – so naive lol. Mostly because advertising is so in your face and so much more interesting!!

So, my aim for the end of semester is to continue putting together my own poster adds and comparing those that use sex to advertise their product, and those that don’t. Which one do you notice first? Why do you think this is? Are we all really just that crude that we see a hot guy or girl and just can’t help but look at it a little longer? … probably.

So this first one is a advertisment for toothpaste, no real reason why i choose this as a product but it seems we can market anything using sexual imagery or suggestions, these two adds could work well together to get this point across, what do you think?

So – what do you think? Which add works better? why does it work better? does sex sell? does sex sell anything/everything?? what do you think when you see this add and the others iv posted up here/ tv/billboard (etc) ..?

I’m sure we’d all agree that using sex to advertise most things is always a winner. Its instinctive – biologically we are programed to be attracted to good looking people, think about sex, and generally just want to have sex. Biologically speaking, we want to have sex so that we can reproduce, so our species can continue to grow, like any animal – we think this way without even trying. But sex is more than just biology working behind the scenes to stop the human race from dying out, its also about an emotional bond between partners and even spirituality. Advertisers use sex on all these levels to steal our attention from the everyday, but how long can they hold out attention before we move on? Do we even know what is being advertised half the time – and does that even matter? i usually find some of the best adds tend to be the ones I don’t quite get straight away.. so this is obviously debatable.

Here is another add iv made recently, it is a prime example of circumstances when sex is blatantly used in advertising and its for no apparent reason…

let me know what your opinion is on the topic, or suggest any adds you think would help this blog!

the gruen transfer

Simone — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:53:31 +0000

love this show!!! If you havnt caught it the Gruen Transfer abc yet then have a lil look at the website.. Its a show about advertising, they have a laugh and a bithc at bad adds, & make a few of there own. Reason i mention it is a friend txted me today to let me know they were running a section on ‘does sex sell?’ – timing!! (thanks nick ) to watch it go to the site and click on the ‘watch the show’ button…

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/gruentransfer/latestshow.htm

liquid courage?

Simone — Mon, 11 May 2009 05:34:02 +0000

After researching a range of products that are living proof that ‘sex sells’ (or at least attempts to often) i set my task for this week – to give advertising a go…

I thought it would be best to advertise something that wasnt an existing product, so a friend and i brainstormed intangable product ideas during the evening tram ride home, here are some of the ones we came up with

an imaginary friend
emotion (boxed, bottled or brewed?)
memories (a USB device that plugs into your head?)
time travel experiences

So i have chosen ‘liquid courage’ as my product to advertise. Its a bottled tonic for guys, that makes them feel braver. Not too convinced iv hit the target with my first few attempts that this, but you have to start somewhere true? Take a look at the posters and tell me what you think!

and one advertising an imaginary friend…

Books, articles & videos you should have a lil look at

Simone — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 08:27:26 +0000

http://designdroplets.com/book-reviews/book-review-sex-design/ (thanks for this one chris)

http://www.tvacres.com/archives_sexsells3.htm (thanks Jana for this and the videos)

Open Wide, No, Wider

Simone — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 02:38:21 +0000

Sex in advertising -

we can’t escape from it, nor apparently, do we want to.

check out some of these and have a guess at what they are advertising, and who they are aimed at…

| View Show | Create Your Own

Who’d have thought? the humble vacume cleaner – a symbol of a woman’s sexual control over men?

an advertisement for sunglasses – i think this one is pretty funny

You’ve got to love the ultra obvious sexual suggestiveness, i’ll never look at a bakery in the same way again…

Usually boobs on an add are a sure give away this is aimed at guys, and while guys will often buy lingerie as gifts for their girlfriends/wives etc. i think the caption reaches out to women, saying – sure i’m not old fashioned like my mum, i don’t cook and clean and look after my household and all that, but i look hot in a wonderbra and nothing else matters.

ahahahaha love it – a change from the usual hot girl infront of the car campaign, this time the car is hotter than the girl.

Just a few more obvious examples to make you think… sometimes you have to read the captions to really get the joke, like the casas shoes ad!!

an example of a little more ‘vintage’ advertising, but not any more subtle really.

a clothing line ad from a gay magazine

“Everything a man would desire. In shoes” – hehe

Yep – that’s right, these boots are so good you’ll have women jumping to the floor to lick them clean.

There is a huge debate over the effectiveness of sex as a technique for advertising. On one side of the fence its clever because what other thing can you think of which almost the entire human race has a common interest in? And hence, what could be a better tactic for advertisers to capture our attention than sex? On the other hand, companies that use sex to advertise are not necessarily remembered for their product – sometimes we are not ever sure what the campaign was advertising because we were too distracted by the images. Other times people can feel the ad has gone too far, pushed the ‘boundaries’ between acceptable and not acceptable public images, public backlash over an advertising campaign can ruin a companies reputaion and ultimately sales revenue.

Either way, its clear that as a technique for advertising almost anything – sex is still the obvious choice.

would love to hear your thoughts!

Why Sex Sells

Simone — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 01:18:31 +0000

Recently i have been mulling over the topic of gender design.

What makes products, clothes and aesthetics specifically masculine or feminine? who decided upon these characteristics of males and females and how did they decide?

Are females trapped by femininity and males by masculinity? And what happens when someone doesn’t fit these parameters?

Were my own gendered ideologies determined by the mass media and advertising which i am surrounded by? Or, is mass media and advertising just a reflection of my own social values in a ploy to better identify with its audience? And, while i sit here examining the questions of sexual sociology, why, at the same time, do i allow marketing propoganda to bullying me into buying that dress from sportsgirl because the photos in the shop windows show me the beautiful, artsy, heroic, sexy, woman i would become when i wore it.

These are some of the things running through my mind this morning, and here is a slightly more ordered list of these tops and how i might attempt to address them.

Construction and separation of the genders
Male/female consumers and object desire
Designing for gender specific targets/desires
Edwin Bernays – Freudian theories of underlying desires used in propaganda marketing
Masculine and Feminine ‘design aesthetics’ – discussions by bloggers/design community
Media & Product Advertising – the role it plays in gender construction/separation
Gender differentiation in retail stores and online retail websites

I have found it difficult to separate the topics from one another. My outcomes for this semester will be focusing mostly on the design of ‘male’ or ‘female’ products, relating this back to the social construction of hetero-normative gender roles, and the re-enforcement of these ideologies through media and the marketing of out products.

It appears to me to be a chicken and the egg situation. Designers are making new products for a particular type of consumer (gender/age/culture/economic situation etc.), who are in turn buying these gender (or otherwise) specific products because capitalist society demands it. Their consumerist “choices” are in turn guided by their/societies understanding of what a normal male or female should be. Gender ideals that are implanted at birth and re-enforced momentarily by media and mass marketing techniques that are advertising the very products society is conditioned to consume.

Considering this I find myself wanting to comment on the irony of the situation we are all in, rather than attempt to deconstruct it. Below are some of the outcomes i will be aiming to acheive by the end of this semester. It is just a primary list and no doubt these ideas will evolve.

Outcomes

Advertising – collect a series of advertisements that are gender-specific, and display these in a medium which allows other people to view and hopefully comment on the messages they receive from them, and whether they think it is targeted to men/women/don’t notice at all.
Products – collect a series of images of products that may be gender-specific, and display these in a medium which allows other people to view and hopefully comment on the messages they receive from them, and whether they think it is targeted to men/women/don’t notice at all.
Retail stores – Photograph/sketch/interview people/document the gendered environment of retail. Particularly fashion, automotive and home wear stores. Focusing on in-store displays, layout, service, and location. Displaying these in a medium which allows people to again view and comment these, hopefully I will be able to make a point of the ‘tricks’ or techniques used to re-enforce hetero-normative gender ideologies.

Retail websites – Screenshot/interview people/document the gendered environment of retail websites. Particularly fashion, automotive and home wear sites. Focusing on image/flash display, layout, and text. Displaying these in a medium which allows people to again view and comment , once again I hopefully will be able to make a point of the ‘tricks’ or techniques used to re-enforce hetero-normative gender ideologies

This blog is a means of placing my thoughts and findings into a public domain in a non-evasive, casual and legal way. I hope to untangle my thoughts on the topic, which will no doubt inform my design process and more importantly my underastanding of humanity and sexuality. please let me know what you think, i would love your comments or thoughts along the way!