Sex in Non-Sex-Related Ads

                  By Rhyann Bowman

I came across this Calvin Klein advertisement while looking for sexually explicit ads that had nothing to do with the product. This ad was among the most sexually explicit in the bunch. In this ad, you can see the female biting the behind of the male, clearly very sexual behavior and it’s not something you see every day because the male is actually being sexualized in this image. Also, she’s clearly not paying attention to the jeans. This ad is literally selling sex instead of the jeans. I decided to work on this topic because I’ve been noticing more and more commercials and advertisements that sexualize common products that we buy every day. Imagine driving down the road one day with your parents and all of you just so happen to look up and see this ad. It’s uncomfortable for all of you for no reason. I think that ads like this are unacceptable. Calvin Klein has other products that can be related to sex in some way so some commercials and ads are understandable but this is not one of them. I think that these ads are very unnecessary and inappropriate especially if they are on billboards because there are children who look at these ads and other people who take offense. This is an ad for jeans and I think that it should have a picture strictly related to jeans. Sex has absolutely nothing to do with jeans but I think that Calvin Klein included it in the advertisement because sex sells and that’s what everything, it seems, boils down to. Marketers should never forget the primordial function of advertising, that of grabbing attention. [1] The image will most likely stick in the customer’s mind with the product because it grabs your attention.

Okay, this is one that I don’t understand. This is an ad from the restaurant, Bice, in Italy. Seeing this ad would not make me want to go out and find this bread. I don’t think that sex sells in the food industry because most people don’t think about sex when they think of food. Personally, I think that this is unappetizing because most people don’t want to think of a penis when they eat bread. Because of this ad, I think that the customers are more likely to have that visual so I don’t think that this was a good marketing technique.

[1] Nishu, "What Stakeholders Can Do To Address ‘Sex’ in Ads," Trends Updates (2013), http://trendsupdates.com/what-stakeholders-can-do-to-address-‘sex’-in-ads/ (accessed January 30, 2014).