Sex in advertising

Sex sells claims the old and undeniably true adage. We are sexual beings. Advertisers use this attribute by trying to associate their products and services with sexy imagery hoping that some of the hotness gets attached to their brand in the consumer's subconscious mind.

However abusing your audience's attention is a dangerous thing. Showing skin to get attention and then trying to sell completely unrelated products like hearing aides, touch-typing courses or car-rental rental services (like you will see below) may backfire. The reader feels cheated and talked down to. Another thing to be cautious about is how much nudity is sufficient to grab eyeballs and what is too much thus considered offending. This is of course a cultural question. Usually the more religious your target market the less accepted it is to show bare body parts. For these reasons one needs to be careful where and how to use sex in advertising.

Yet there are many brands that are brave enough to take the risk and celebrate sex as any other source of joy in life in their ads. Decide what works and what not for you and presumably for the target within this pool of several dozen campaigns collected over the last few years. Check out the images below or watch the video on YouTube.

Food and drinks

Fashion

Automobiles and car rentals

Technology and gadgets

Travel and tourism

Health & Beauty

Detergents

Magazines

Public interest

Various others

Finally this is how you sell lingerie in Saudi Arabia. The campaign is mocking the censorship that exists in the Kingdom.