Sex doesn’t actually sell – it just makes people uncomfy
Sex sells, right?
It’s the reason why “banned” Super Bowl ads get a zillion YouTube hits and why babes in bikinis and burger joints are a match made in heaven. It’s also why the majority of girls at the top of the Insta-famous food chain pose in their bikini (or less) more often than not.
But how many drooling dudes actually go out and buy a Carl’s Jr. burger after watching Charlotte McKinney prance around in the nude at a farmer’s market on TV?
Well, according to a new study, not that many.
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It may not be quite as succinct and catchy, but the phrase “sex sells” would be more accurate if it was “sex makes people remember your commercial but not necessarily your brand.”
Researchers analyzed 78 studies that collectively involved 17,000 people in the US, Asia, Australia, and Europe, and found that sexy ads don’t make people spend money on that brand. In fact, they can sometimes do the opposite.
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While participants were more likely to remember sexier ads, they weren’t any more likely to remember the brand behind the ad. Participants were also more likely to have a negative association with a brand that employs sexual images in an ad, which makes sense.
After all, you might remember those creepily sexual GoDaddy commercials that used to pop around every Super Bowl, but you might still have no clue what GoDaddy actually is. And if you do know what it is and are looking to buy a domain name, you might want to steer clear of GoDaddy because you think it’d be better suited for an aspiring porn site than your portfolio page.
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But the kicker is that the sexy ads didn’t drive people to buy more than the non-sexy ads did, even though men in particular did report liking the ads much more than the females studied.
“We found literally zero effect on participants’ intention to buy products in ads with a sexual appeal,” said the report’s lead author to the University of Illinois. “This assumption that sex sells—well, no, according to our study, it doesn’t. There’s no indication that there’s a positive effect.”
Maybe this is why fewer advertisers are taking the porn-y approach to their commercials? It could be aversion to the PC police, or it could be because they’re no longer seeing a return on investing in a Sports Illustrated model for their burger ads.
H/T: Quartz
