ha
2009
Does Sex Sell?
This research explores the effectiveness of
using sex appeal in advertisements.
Our project is to determine whether sex in advertising has a strong hold on
how people buy from certain brands or do they buy from the advertisements.
Our goal is to discover if consumers purchase due to the brand or from the
advertisement.
Client: Bartle Bogle Hegarty
This is a notable advertising firm that is
responsible for the highly controversial Axe
campaign.
Chris Lardizabal, Dragana, Slavoc, and Mabel Oza
Team SOL
2/23/2009
Does Sex Sell?
Table of Contents
Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................ 5
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 5
Literature Review............................................................................................................................ 6
"Sex in Advertising an Evolution of More Than 80 Years of OHHHS and AHHHS.".............. 6
You and Me, Babe: Sex and Advertising.” ................................................................................. 7
“Sex In Advertising Research: A Review of Content, Effects, and Functions of Sexual
Information in Consumer Advertising” ...................................................................................... 8
“Sex in Advertising: Does it sell?” ........................................................................................... 10
“Does Sex in Advertising Work?” ............................................................................................ 11
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male ........................................................................................ 12
Sexual Behavior in the Human Female .................................................................................... 12
“Axe: How Dirty Boys Get Clean” ........................................................................................... 15
Campaign for Beauty ................................................................................................................ 15
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................. 16
Background Information ............................................................................................................... 19
Client ............................................................................................................................................. 20
Need for Marketing Research ....................................................................................................... 21
Research Problem ......................................................................................................................... 21
Symptoms ................................................................................................................................. 21
Suspected causes ....................................................................................................................... 23
Solutions ................................................................................................................................... 23
Objectives ................................................................................................................................. 24
Determine which factor caused Unilever’s Axe sales to increase by $3 million.................. 24
Profile the UIC population as a whole .................................................................................. 24
Determine whether sex enhances, deteriorates, or neutralizes the brand. ............................ 24
Determine UIC student’s reaction towards sexually explicit content. .................................. 24
If sex in advertising proves to be an effective method, then: ............................................... 25
If sex in advertising proves to deteriorate the brand name or have no affect on consumers,
then........................................................................................................................................ 25
Anticipated consequences ............................................................................................................. 25
Assumptions.................................................................................................................................. 26
Marketing manager’s assumptions ........................................................................................... 26
Researcher’s assumptions ......................................................................................................... 26
Problem Statement ........................................................................................................................ 26
Methodology ................................................................................................................................. 27
Participants ................................................................................................................................ 27
Results ....................................................................................................................................... 27
Demographics (Descriptive) ................................................................................................. 28
Psychographics (Descriptive and Correlation) ..................................................................... 30
Geodemographics (Descriptive) ........................................................................................... 31
Media’s influence on the perception of relationships (Correlation Analysis) ...................... 32
What factors cause the desensitization? (Multi-Linear Regression)..................................... 33
Family discussion about it and their comfort level towards the subject (Chi-Square
Analysis). .............................................................................................................................. 34
Limitations ................................................................................................................................ 35
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Does Sex Sell?
Recommendations on the Research Project .............................................................................. 36
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List of Illustrations, Figures, and Tables
Possible confounding variables 1.................................................................................................. 23
Ethnicity Frequency Table 1 ......................................................................................................... 28
Sexual Orientation Frequency Table 1 ......................................................................................... 28
Gender Frequency Table 1 ............................................................................................................ 29
Age Frequency Table 1 ................................................................................................................. 29
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs 1 .................................................................................................... 30
Reliability Check - Correlation 1 .................................................................................................. 31
Geodemographics 1 ...................................................................................................................... 31
Media's Influence on Relationships 1 ........................................................................................... 32
Factors that desensitize sex 1 .........................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
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Executive Summary
Almost every media outlet some way or another has a reference to sex. We wanted to see
if sex still has same power it had in previous years. This project measured how certain factors
that affect sexual attitudes towards advertising and also how sexual advertising affects
consumers into purchasing goods.
In this study, we surveyed 164 college age consumers in the City of Chicago at The
University of Illinois at Chicago. The survey consisted of questions dealing with television
advertisements, magazine and newspaper advertisements, and marketing campaigns. We also
included questions about the demographic and lifestyle of the consumers to gain an overall
understanding of the respondents.
After the data analysis we were not able to answer our questions if sex sells, but we found
out more about what factors can actually affect a consumer’s behavior and view towards sexual
advertisements. These factors included sexual orientation, family structure, religion, ethnicity,
media exposure, and personal values. We concluded that our client should focus their efforts on
their consumers’ entire profile rather than just their gender and age.
As our city becomes more diversified individual preferences become more distinct. So
making generalizations about target markets just gives marketers a false sense of security. With
the available tools online it is much easier and affordable to create custom marketing plans for
every individual consumer.
Introduction
In today’s society, advertisers use sex or sexual images to sell a product or idea to
consumers. Even though this worked in the past, the consumers have changed from being
shocked to being desensitized to this sexual imagery. The question now arises; does sex still sell
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in today’s society as a whole? As market researchers, we look into these ideas of “does sex sell”
and we research the effects of the results. Should marketers still go for this emotion of sex
towards their customers or should they change their tactics? In our study, we will determine if
sex can still be relevant in advertising towards certain markets.
Literature Review
This research further implores this issue with the research question, to what degree does
that sex influence advertising, and how does it influence advertising? This research examines an
issue of social and psychological theory; this involves our society’s openness towards sex and
our personal feelings towards sex. This discussion has been debated and studied for years; there
have been several respectable published literature, studies, radio and television interviews that
back up both sides of this argument. The research compiled in this project explains different
perspectives of the issue and further defines the problem; this in turn assists us in finding a
suitable recommendation.
"Sex in Advertising an Evolution of More Than 80 Years of OHHHS and
AHHHS."
Graham Greene
2009
To better understand this issue we will also be referring to another well known marketing
research company, Gallup and Robinson, which publishes and directs some of their research
findings to society. Their website contains survey of how the public feels about certain
advertisements with and without sexual content. Their conclusion from this study was, “handle
with care.” Using sex can be highly effective; however, if it is misused or overused it can destroy
the brand within seconds.
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The research orientation implemented in this study was interpretive because it involved
sales statistics collected from the several companies and interpreted the degree of sexuality in
each advertisement. The author’s theoretical framework in this research was historical; this was
demonstrated by the way the author refers to past successes and failures. The author also gives
the viewer a timeline of decade and their advertisements.
This is research is highly valid; however, the reliability of the research may be
questioned. It is valid because really the only way to measure the effectiveness of advertising is
measure the sales and compares the degree to which sex was used with the sales it generated.
The problem with the research is that determining the degree of sexual content each
advertisement has can be completely biased. The researchers should have provided an in-depth
explanation of how each ad qualifies as sexually appealing. For example, there is picture of a
couple of shoes that is photographed with subdued lighting. In this research the researchers take
it for granted that everyone will understand how this picture has some sort of sexual influence.
This research can help us with our study because it is basically answering the same
research question as us but in a broader view. The first part of the research helps us understand
how effective sexual advertising is by examining how long this technique was used for. The
article states that sex appeal was used all the way back from the 1800s. If this method was used
throughout American history, then there has to be some sort of effectiveness to the method.
You and Me, Babe: Sex and Advertising.”
Dr. Richard F. Taflinger
1996
This research also presents the view of a communications professor who is against sexual
references in advertising. Dr. Richard Taflinger, professor from WSU, argues that this
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methodology exploits human biology and society’s openness towards sex. His research illustrates
a variety of advertisement endorsing sex from times as early the 1950’s till present day.
Dr. Taflinger uses an interpretive approach in studying the effects advertising has on our
human biology. His research orientation is interpretive because his research is solely based on
him examining advertisements that he believes are sexually explicit. His theoretical framework is
mainly biological. He takes on biological approach by his argument alone; he is explaining to his
audience how our biological desires would respond to each advertisement.
This research is somewhat valid and completely unreliable. The research is marginally
valid because it answers the questions of how sex affects our natural desires. But it does not
qualify as completely valid researches because it does not necessary go into further detail into
why it exploits the human biology in a negative way. It is highly unreliable because this research
is only based on his opinion of each advertisement; in fact, he hardly even provides actual
evidence to back up his claims.
This article is useful because it helps us understand how powerful sex is. This study tells
us how often sex appeal is used in almost every ad, and then it goes on to tell us about the
technicalities of sex. The technicalities are just the biological perspective and the logical
argument of how it exploits our biology. This article will help us argue that sex has a powerful
effect on us biologically and that this urge is really uncontrollable, giving it more power.
“Sex In Advertising Research: A Review of Content, Effects, and Functions of
Sexual Information in Consumer Advertising”
Tom Reichert
2002
This article goes in depth about the history of sex in advertising. His main point is
basically that sex in advertising has helped many businesses from failing and makes a complete
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turn from failure. The main point of the article is that sex in advertising is helpful and that it has
been a part of advertising since the creation of advertising.
The article is seen more as a critical science as it helps define what sex in advertising can
do according to research that has already been conducted. An example he uses are two
companies that had used sex in advertising to make a dramatic change in their sales. He gives the
reader this historical aspect on the idea then relates it to certain statistics.
His theoretical framework is historical. Again, he uses the businesses from the past and
gives examples as to how it relates sex in advertising to an increasing number in sales. Using the
same example, he talks about how one business changed its advertising towards women to create
a boost in sales.
His views are valid because he does have the information to back himself up. This idea of
“sex sells” has been used since the beginning of advertising itself and has been used up to this
day. Another example would be the business of soap. At first, it was failing until he created this
intimate portrait along with the soap to advertise and sales went for the better.
His argument is that advertising with sexual images or sexual innuendos helps businesses
by attracting customers. He also argues that sexual content in advertising can be interpreted
differently depending on who is seeing it. A shirtless male can seem harmless to one person, but
very sexual to the next.
The author’s tone is very direct as in many research articles and gives off more of an
informational view rather than in his own opinion. It also goes toward the idea that sex in
advertising is a good idea if done properly.
It relates to our thesis due to the informational and historic viewpoints. Our thesis, “Is sex
in advertising still effective?” uses this idea and history of sex in advertising and we relate that to
today, where sex in advertising is very commonplace compared to years before.
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“Sex in Advertising: Does it sell?”
Mark Levitt
The thesis for this article is that sex in advertising can be overdone and result in a
backlash other than creating higher profit for businesses. His main point is that there are different
levels to advertising, such as subtle and provocative, to raunchy and flamboyant.
The author’s orientation is towards being scientific towards this idea of the results from
surveys that he had read himself. The idea is that when an advertisement is seen as subtle and
provocative, the results seem positive. But when blatant and open to sex, such as high amounts
of nudity towards an audience who is seen as too young for the idea, it can become a controversy
and cause negative results towards the business it represents.
His theoretical framework is focused more on the psychology of the consequences of
what sex in advertising can do to a business. For one example, a company was very provocative,
using innuendos that children may not understand, but adults can clearly catch in their
advertisements. On the other hand, another business, whose target market is teenagers, used
explicit nudity and very awkward photos to sell clothing?
His main argument is that sex and advertising can either sell or create controversy and
fail. When used properly and very subtle, it can be a positive benefit towards the business. But
when exploited and sex is used for times when it isn’t even appropriate can cause a backlash or
controversy around the business.
The strength of this article is that it provides this argument that sex in advertising can
either make a campaign or break the campaign. Its limitation is that it isn’t very in-depth, but
provides another idea towards our thesis.
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This article relates to our thesis because it provides us more information about this idea
about how sex in advertising isn’t always a good thing. Also it provides us more information
about the struggles of how far a company can go using sex in their own advertisements.
“Does Sex in Advertising Work?”
Tom Reichert
March 22, 2008
In this article, the author focuses more on not that sex in advertising work, but how does
it work and in what situations. He uses Axe body spray as a major example how it does attract
your attention, but also promises benefits towards the user.
His orientation is towards is a combination of critical science and being interpretive. He
interprets this objection that sex in advertising doesn’t work, but it actually does. Also he
supports it with background information that may not be available to others who object to the
idea. Take example the sales of body spray for men. With the launch of axe, not only has Axe’s
sales increased due to advertising, but other bath and body companies have created and sold high
amounts of body spray.
His framework is based on a psychological study. Companies use sex in the
advertisements to attract customers, but also to promise certain aspects, such as “if you do this,
then this is the result” or “This will make you more appealing to others” and so forth.
The research is valid due to his background information and how he presents his findings
through more research.
He was given the opinion that sex cannot sell, but he was able to prove that it does have
an effect, just not what people expect. The idea was that sexual images or situations in
advertising can make the looker into a buyer, but it actually only lures the looker and promises it
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certain ideas if bought. Therefore, it results into this idea that the product has a sexual affect,
such as Axe body spray.
This relates to our thesis not only from advertising in general, but how people react to
certain ideas that exude from the advertisement. In Axe body spray ads, they go directly into this
idea that it can attract women for you when you put it on, but it sells because it’s promising a
benefit to the purchase of the product.
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male
Alfred Charles Kinsey
1948
Sexual Behavior in the Human Female
Alfred Charles Kinsey
1953
Alfred Charles Kinsey’s research on America’s view on sex is one of the main causes for
the sexual revolution in the 1960’s. His books, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and Sexual
Behavior in the Human Female was one of the first times the American society, in decades,
started discussing sex in public. During the 1960’s the nation was highly conservative about sex,
in fact, many shows produced during that time had couples sleep in separate beds. This attitude
of denying the existence of sex left many individuals confused about their sexuality and
appropriate sexual behaviors. The thesis behind his research was to investigate whether people
deal with sex the way society assumes how to deal with it.
The research orientation he implemented in this research was interpretive and partially
critical science. This research was based on a combination of interviews, observations, and his
own knowledge and research on the human biology. For the interview he mainly used open
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ended questions. He starts out every interview with the unprobed questions profile questions then
as he gets his respondents warmed up he goes into the probed questions about their sex life. His
study profiled his respondents according to their sex, marital status, age, race, occupation,
religion, religious adherence, and parent’s occupation (class they were brought up in). His in
depth, probed questions were in regards to his respondent’s feelings about certain aspects of
attraction, and what they actually do.
This study involves biology, psychology, sociology and sexology. Due to Kinsey’s prior
experience as a notable biologist, he may have been influenced to use a biologist’s perspective
on designing the questions and interpreting the results. Due to the sensitivity of his interviews he
had to use methods of psychology in wording the questions, transitioning to the next question,
ordering the question, and understanding the participant’s nonverbal communication to open up
his participants. Since this research is based on society’s view on sex this research is mainly a
sociological study. This research basically introduced the topic of sexology, an in depth study of
human sexual behavior.
This research has been highly criticized for being invalid and unreliable. It is said to be
invalid because some of the questions were too open and informal to effectively be scaled down
to a statistic. For example, a respondent’s sexuality could not be specifically scaled because there
are several unknown factors that would determine a person’s sexuality. This research has been
criticized for being unreliable because the sample was biased; most of people interviewed were
prisoners. This biasness may have strongly overstated his conclusion of society being sexually
open. After brutal criticism over this biasness the head of the Kinsey Institute, Paul Gebhard,
conducted the same experiment in the 1970’s, excluding prisoners. Paul’s study demonstrated
that Kinsey could have got the same results as he originally collected without the prisoner
biasness. This, however, is biased because Paul conducted the study after the sexual revolution,
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which meant that people were a lot more open about sex than the time Kinsey conducted the
survey. Many aspects of his research are unknown and un-standardized. This is mainly because
the non-sampling error is unavoidable; since this research was based on personal interviews and
observations the interviewer’s rapport with respondents, the interviewer’s beliefs, and the
respondent’s beliefs.
This research is a prime example of how the American public still reflects and does
sexual acts even though it is not discussed openly. This conclusion helps us explain how sex is
not a notion that is purely influenced by our society but rather a natural, biological urge. Most
effective advertising appeal to instinctive urges, because they are ambitions that we as humans
are not able to control. Since this study establishes that sex is a biological urge, advertisers could
effectively get consumers’ attentions without them even realizing it.
Sex has a major influence over advertising, it is practically impossible to buy a product
without thinking about sex in some way or another. This theory is illustrated by sexual references
(the act of having sex), revealing clothes (or even no clothes), and the so called, “gorgeous
people” in advertisements. Sexual references are constantly used in Axe commercials when girls
wildly attack boys wearing Axe body spray. In car magazines they always show a girl with a
mini skirt and a tight half unbuttoned blouse, even when the object is just cars. In clothing
advertisements it is highly rare to find an overweight person modeling the clothes (and if they do
have an overweight model it is usually presented as philanthropic effort). Sex is a highly useful
tool because according to Sigmund Freud’s study, sexual desires are the basis of all unconscious
urges. So these advertisers are really trying to appeal towards consumer’s subliminal thoughts.
Our research question is tailored towards young adults in Chicago, between the ages of
18 to 26. This research will be taken through the University of Illinois, DePaul, Loyola,
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University of Illinois at Chicago, other facebook networks that consists of our target market. Our
sample will represent the greater population of young adults in Chicago and give us an indicator
of how sex affects this target market.
“Axe: How Dirty Boys Get Clean”
This is a published study from the New York American Marketing Association. This study gives
us the play by play strategy of each step BBH took in their Axe marketing strategy. This study
tells the BBH’s objectives behind the campaign, and the brand personality. The brand personality
is composed of characteristics such as, “cool,” “masculine,” and “update.” The study also tells us
that the target market is 11-24 year old boys, but their focused target market is 18-24 years. The
reason the 18 to 24 year olds are the focused target market is because most of these boys are in
college and work, and they are beginning to buy their own personal care products. Then the
study goes into more detail on their creative marketing strategy and media strategy.
Campaign for Beauty
Unilever.com helped us find more information about the company and what product and
services they provide. It helped us understand the company better. The other two websites,
iaaglobal.org and campaingforbeauty.com gave us more insight about Axe and Dove products
and how Axe uses sex in advertising unlike Dove. Axe is designed around sex appeal and it
really shows in their television commercials.
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Bibliography
"Campaign for Real Beauty." Dove's Self Esteem Website. Unilever. 23 Mar 2009
<http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/>.
Daye, Derrick, Brad VanAuken. March 22, 2008. “Does Sex in Advertising Work.” Branding
Strategy Insider: The Branding Blog.
http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/2008/03/does-sex-in-adv.html
Greene, Graham. "Sex in Advertising An Evolution of More Than 80 Years of OHHHS and
AHHHS." Gallup and Robinson 25 Feb 2009 <http://www.galluprobinson.com/essay1.html>.
“How dirty boys get clean.” 2006. New York American Marketing Association.
http://www.printsells.org/documents/cases/axe.pdf
Internal Unilever document in all markets where launched
http://www.iaaglobal.org/file.ashx?fid=08eff0a5-b79e-4e09-9824-4b3948190f63
Kinsey, Alfred Charles. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. Bloomington, IN: Indianan
University Publishing Press, 1953.
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Kinsey, Alfred Charles. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Bloomington, IN: Indianan
University Publishing Press, 1948.
Levit, M. (2005, February 15). Sex in Advertising: Does it Sell?. Retrieved February 1, 2009,
from http://ezinearticles.com/?Sex-in-Advertising:-Does-it-Sell?&id=14551
"My letter to the FCC in objection to outrageous Axe commercials on network tv." Safari Marxi.
July 12 2007. Vox. 23 Mar 2009 <(http://safarimari.vox.com/library/post/my-letter-tothe-fcc-in-objection-to-outrageous-axe-commercials-on-network-tv.html).>.
Reichert, Tom "Sex in advertising research: A review of content, effects, and functions of sexual
information in consumer advertising". Annual Review of Sex Research.
FindArticles.com. 01 Feb, 2009.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3778/is_200201/ai_n9032366
Taflinger, PhD, Richard F., May 28, 1996. “You and Me, Babe: Sex and Advertising.”
Washington State University Media and Communications Studies.
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~taflinge/sex.html
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Watts, James. "New Lynx fragrance set to deliver 'Unlimited' sales." Unilever. June 12 2004.
Unilever. 23 Mar 2009
<http://www.unilever.co.uk/ourcompany/newsandmedia/pressreleases/2004/lynxunlimite
d.asp>.
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Background Information
With 400 brands spanning 14 categories of home, personal care and foods products, no
other company touches so many people's lives in so many different ways. Unilever’s brand
portfolio has made them leaders in every field in which we work. It ranges from much-loved
world favorites including Lipton, Knorr, Axe, Dove and Omo, to trusted local brands such as
Blue Band and Suave. From comforting soups to warm a winter's day, to sensuous soaps that
make person feel fabulous, their products help people get more out of life. They are constantly
enhancing their brands to deliver more intense, rewarding product experiences. They invest
nearly $1 billion every year in cutting edge research and development, and have five laboratories
around the world that explore new thinking and techniques to help develop our products.
From its launch, the yearly fragrance variant of Axe has played a key part in the success
of the brand, by offering something new each year. The type of fragrance variants have evolved
over time. From 1983 until about 1989, the variant names were descriptions of the odor of the
fragrance inside and included Musk, Spice, Amber, Marine and Oriental. From 1990 until 1996
geographic names were used such as Africa, Alaska, Java, Nevada and Inca. From 1996 to 2002
Axe took inspiration from Calvin Klein fragrances (also owned by Unilever at that time), using
the same perfumer, Anne Gottlieb, to develop the fragrances to launch variants such as
Dimension, Apollo, Voodoo, Gravity and Phoenix. From 2003 Axe variants showed clever ways
they helped men get women. In 2003 the Pulse fragrance showed how it gave geeky men the
confidence to dance to get women. This was followed by Touch, Unlimited, Clix and in 2007
Vice was marketed on a theme of making "nice" women become "naughty". In 2008 a different
direction was taken when a chocolate scented body spray, Dark Temptation, was released.
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Dove is a personal care brand owned by Unilever. Dove is primarily made from synthetic
surfactants, as well as some vegetable oil based soap ingredients, such as sodium palm kernelate.
Dove is formulated to be pH neutral, with a pH that is usually between 6.5 and 7.5. Dove
products are manufactured in The Netherlands; Indiana, USA; Germany; Ireland and Brazil. The
Dove trademark and brand name is currently owned by Unilever. Dove's logo is a silhouette
profile of a dove, the color of which often varies. Dove's products include:
antiperspirants/deodorants, body washes, beauty bars, lotions/moisturizers, hair care and facial
care products. In the US, Dove bar soap is currently produced in the cool moisture, exfoliating,
sensitive skin unscented, nourishing, white, pink, calming night, pro-age, and energy glow
versions. In 2006, Dove started the Dove Self-Esteem Fund. It purports to be "an agent of change
to educate and inspire girls on a wider definition of beauty and to make them feel more confident
about themselves". To this end, Dove have created a number of largely online-only short films,
including Daughters (which also aired in a 75-second spot during the Super Bowl XL),
Evolution (which won two awards at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival),
Onslaught, and Amy.
Client
Axe is interested in how far they can get with using sex appeal as a selling point. The
company knows that they cannot appeal to every demographic using sex in their advertisements,
and they are hoping that by us doing this research, they will be able to define their demographics
and how far they can go with using sex in their advertisements. We assume that their target
appeal to that age group than any other. Axe just needs to know how much of that sex appeal that
is used in their advertisements is appropriate.
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Need for Marketing Research
BBH is constantly called out by several social groups for over exposing sexual content.
The purpose behind this research is to find out whether focusing their ad on sex rather than the
product is really an effective way to advertise in this day and age.
Research Problem
This is an opportunity problem, Unilever’s Axe sales improved by $3 million but could
they have increased their sales by more. Even though advertising and marketing are powerful
sales tools they are not the only reason why sales increase. We must also look at the different
factors that affect consumption such as: politics, economics, technology, culture, or the target
market’s position. This research problem will answer the age old question, “does sex sell?” To
discover the answer to this question we will be measuring the effectiveness of using sex appeal
to sell products. Our answer to this question will only help us understand if sex sells, to our
generation, age group, and culture. As a research team hired by BBH our main goal is to provide
our client with the best representation of the Chicago’s young adults. Since sexual appeal causes
outrage by several groups in this state, determining the effect of sex in advertising will help us
understand the value gained or lost from this method. Using sexual appeal has been BBH’s
strongest attribute in the advertising market, before our client becomes too reliant on this
strength we would like to asses weather this strength will still help them prevail in today’s
society.
Symptoms
There has been a strong opposition against the Axe marketing campaign from feminist
groups, parents, religious groups, and several conservatives. Their advertisements seem repulsive
to these groups because they objectify females, expose sexual displays on public television
(which means children who do not understand sex are getting ideas from the advertisement
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instead of from their parents), encourage premarital sexual activity, and they give young men a
false impression of how females what to be treated. Since these groups are enforcing these values
as social taboos these advertisements, associated with these values, are also becoming social
taboos.
Many of these groups have taken actions to ban these advertisements, boycott their
goods, and demoralize their products. One concerned parent wrote, “Please take immediate
measures to censure Axe, and then take a closer look at what is broadcast. There is too much
overt violence, suggested violence, and overt and suggested sleaziness…” to get FCC to ban the
advertisement from television. This belief is shared by thousands of more parents, if one parent
could propose immediate actions like this imagine the impact of having a thousand parents do
the same. In a popular feminist blog one blogger described the ad as, “the violence effect”
claiming that the advertisement portrays females as these objects that are constantly hungry for
sex, and likes to act rough. This blogger is practically associating the crime sexual violence with
the advertisement; this association is highly deteriorating to the brand value.
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Suspected causes
During this tough economy there can be several reasons why a product would have
increased sales; one of the most basic causes for increased sales is if the product is an inferior
good. So did Axe’s sales improve because of the bad economy or because of their marketing
strategy? Another reason behind Axe’s increased sales might be the new online marketing
methods they are using. Right now Axe is very active on their online marketing, this intense
online marketing may have caused the sales to increase because with this tool they are able to
increase the consumer involvement.
Possible confounding variables 1
Solutions
The problem with Unilever’s Axe is that their advertisements are seen as immature due to
how they portray the effects. Older men may not want this idea that young women will attack
them or that they will have unexplainable nights and still be able to recover from them.
Another factor may be who sees these advertisements. They may have to show different
effects of what can happen to someone who wears Axe. It can be as common as getting
someone’s number from a bar or just getting the whole room to stare. The more subtle the
commercial will cause fewer complaints from other conservative groups.
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Objectives
In order for our firm to adequately supply BBH with the proper information we have set specific
research objectives to ensure we acquire the correct information. The following represent the
specific information we will be targeting.
Determine which factor caused Unilever’s Axe sales to increase by $3 million.
This objective will help Unilever figure out what is exactly helping and stopping their brand
from growing. Unilever’s assumption is that their controversial marketing campaign is the main
cause for this increase in sales. If we break down and isolate the different factors that could have
affected their sales we will be able to determine the true effectiveness of their marketing
campaign.
Profile the UIC population as a whole. This objective will be able to lead us into
determining who may be Axe’s target market at UIC. One question that may arise is that do
college students still use Axe? This objective may lead us into another idea that may lead into
helping the brands, where they might want to use less or more sexual images in their advertising.
Determine whether sex enhances, deteriorates, or neutralizes the brand. This
objective will help our client and our society understand the full of impact of using sexual appeal
in advertising. Every advertisement has only thirty seconds to represent their brand’s reputation;
this means that one little sexual reference can change the consumer’s perception. Due to the
controversy of sex, this element is highly noticeable and can significantly change the brand
perception.
Determine UIC student’s reaction towards sexually explicit content. By
understanding BBH’s clientele we will be able to help them create market offerings that best suit
their target market. After all, these overly sexual advertisements are made just to appeal to them.
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If their target market, 18-25 years, does not approve of these sexually explicit advertisements
there really is no reason for them.
If sex in advertising proves to be an effective method, then:
Determine why is it effective? This objective will be provide us with a logical and well
supported argument to weather sexually explicit content helps our client.
If sex in advertising proves to deteriorate the brand name or have no affect on
consumers, then
Determine why it is ineffective. This objective will provide us with a logical and well
supported argument to weather sexually explicit content worsens or neutralizes the brand. Since,
this is such a controversial method of selling; this information will help us understand if this
method is really worth the price of being controversial.
Anticipated consequences
We anticipate that most of our respondents will be comfortable with sex and talking to
their parents about sex, because most of our respondents will be from UIC and the age range of
the respondents will be 18-25. We believe that there is nothing wrong with using sex in
advertising, as long as it is used within the appropriate limits. We want to know how comfortable
people are with sex, if the advertisers should continue to include sexually explicit images in their
advertising in the limits they are using now, or should they even put more sex into advertising in
order to sell the products. So far, it seems that sex in advertising work, as we have seen a huge
success with an Axe campaign.
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Assumptions
Marketing manager’s assumptions
Axe has many assumptions from our questionnaire. They assume that we will use the right
questions and information to gather the necessary data. It is very important how we phrase the
questions and we will do our best not to write any leading or misleading questions. Gathered
information will help managers determine how much sex is appropriate when they make the
advertising commercials and how influential it is. This will keep the company out of lawsuits and
out of wasting their money on banned ads.
Researcher’s assumptions
Team SOL assumes that Unilever is accurate about their increase in sales with the Axe product
line, and that their target market is young males of the ages 11 till 24 years. Also the researcher
assumes that the Unilever see potential in their product and even though their sales increased
there is a potential for an even greater increase. We are also assuming that our target market,
college students in UIC, is hugely influenced by cultural differences. To overcome these cultural
differences the respondents will be segmented according to their ethnic groups, religious groups,
gender, religious adherence, parent’s teaching about the subject. With this research we will find
out not only how much sex is appropriate for the company’s advertising, but also if the
customers are not only males, but females as well.
Problem Statement
We want to find out how much influence sex has on advertising. We will be questioning young
and middle aged males and females what they think about Axe’s use of sex in advertising.
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Methodology
Participants
Our team will be targeting college students who are of the ages 18 till 24 years. They are our
target market for this research because BBH’s Axe campaign is targeted towards this age group.
First five to ten students will be randomly picked in their classes to perform this survey with a
hard copy. This will allow us to screen any possible confounding variables from our questions,
and understand the effectiveness of our questions. After these students complete the
questionnaire we will ask them about their general opinion on the survey. After the questionnaire
is fully polished we will be post our survey on Qualtrics and facebook. On facebook we will
invite everyone on a college network to participate, after their participation we will screen the
surveys and only use the ones that fit our targeted age group. The incentive for our survey is
confidentiality, supporting new sociology findings, getting better suited offers from different
companies, and the findings will only be revealed to them. This last incentive will be a private
facebook group that will briefly summarize our findings.
Results
Unfortunately our survey did not answer our question of weather sex sells. This survey
was focused too much on the sociology and psychology aspect of sex that we lost sight of the
consumption, economical aspect of it. Even though we did not answer our client’s question of
weather sex sells, they still use our research as a secondary resource in the future. Our findings
turned out to be the affect of oversexed media on society. Our client could use our findings to
counter-argue claims on how oversexed media deteriorates society. Our findings include
information on UIC’s demographics, psychographics, geodemographics, media’s influence on
the perception of relationships, and what factors cause the desensitization of sex.
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Demographics (Descriptive)
To research our demographics we conducted a descriptive analysis, more specifically a
frequency analysis. Our demographics indicated that our respondents were dominantly
Caucasian, straight, females of the age of 18 to 25 years old.
Ethnicity Frequency Table 1
Ethnicity
Cumulative
Frequency
Valid
Missing
Percent
Valid Percent
Percent
White/caucasian
63
37.5
46.7
46.7
African American
9
5.4
6.7
53.3
Hispanic
27
16.1
20.0
73.3
Asian/ Pacific Islander
34
20.2
25.2
98.5
Other
2
1.2
1.5
100.0
Total
135
80.4
100.0
33
19.6
168
100.0
System
Total
Sexual Orientation Frequency Table 1
Sexual Orientation
Cumulative
Frequency
Valid
Straight
Gay
Total
Missing
System
Total
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Percent
Valid Percent
Percent
131
78.0
97.8
97.8
3
1.8
2.2
100.0
134
79.8
100.0
34
20.2
168
100.0
Does Sex Sell?
Gender Frequency Table 1
Gender
Cumulative
Frequency
Valid
Valid Percent
Percent
Male
62
36.9
46.3
46.3
Female
72
42.9
53.7
100.0
134
79.8
100.0
34
20.2
168
100.0
Total
Missing
Percent
System
Total
Age Frequency Table 1
Age
Cumulative
Frequency
Valid
Percent
Valid Percent
Percent
18-25
121
72.0
89.6
89.6
26-35
14
8.3
10.4
100.0
Thus, this research is only useful in making conclusions about this particular
demographic. In addition, this means that our client, BBH, cannot use this research to make
evaluation on the effectiveness of the current Axe campaign; their campaign targets males while
this survey is a representative of females. However, BBH can still use this research to make
conclusions on the general public view on sex, or if they wanted to develop an Axe campaign
that targeted females to encourage their guy friends and boyfriends to buy Axe. Note that we can
safely assume that these females will men relations, because 98% of the respondents are straight.
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Psychographics (Descriptive and Correlation)
To understand the way our respondent’s philosophy we asked questions relating to how
they regarded thier values and needs. There was a likert scale question that asked respondents to
Note: the lowest part of
the pyramid was encoded
as 5 while the highest
part was encoded as 1.
Note: Extremely
unimportant is 0
and important is 5.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs 1
rate the importance of each value as extremely important to extremely non important. Then there
was nominal question that asked respondents to pick the most important value from the
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
First we ran a descriptive frequency analysis on each value in the likert scale, from this
we found that a majority of the people find most their values unimportant. Since these findings
are so skewed we cannot make any strong conclusions from it, because this may indicate some
sort of non-sampling error.
Fortunately, we were able to do a reliability test using the question on Maslow’s
hierarchy of needs. We conducted the reliability test through a correlation analysis between the
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs question and the question that rated the importance of the value
security. From this analysis we concluded that these questions were unreliable, because even
though they had a positive relationship their correlation was very weak, view the table below for
more details. Since the survey is unreliable we cannot make any valid recommendations based
on this research. Some possible reasons behind the unreliability may have been due to the
wording, order, technical niches, or the way they were distributed.
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Reliability Check - Correlation 1
Correlations
Maslow's
Hierarchy of
Value - Security
Value - Security
Pearson Correlation
Needs
.068
1.000
Sig. (2-tailed)
.445
N
127.000
127
Geodemographics (Descriptive)
Our geographic indicate that 55% of our respondents live in the suburbs and 42% of our
respondents live in the city. This information is helps us determine the respondent’s
environment, and weather they are affected the media the most. Generally communities in rural
areas have less exposure towards the media, suburbs are exposed to media in mediocrity, and
communities in cities are the exposed to media the most.1 This means that a majority of our
respondents have at least a decent exposure towards the media, and are reliable in making
conclusion pertaining to the media’s affects.
Geodemographics 1
Where do you and/or your family live?
Cumulative
Frequency
Valid
Percent
Valid Percent
Percent
3
1.8
2.3
2.3
Suburban
74
44.0
55.6
57.9
City
56
33.3
42.1
100.0
Rural
1
Note: this is based on a personal assumption. Societies that are furthest from the city and less diverse are more
likely to be influence by the media, since they are geographically closest to the mainstream media.
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Geodemographics
Rural
Surburburn
City
Media’s influence on the perception of relationships (Correlation Analysis)
One of the main reasons we are re-evaluating the axe campaign’s effectiveness is because
its explicitness on sex caused a lot of controversy. As stated in the symptom’s section, several
people believe these advertisements give boys a false perception that all girls want is sex. This is
why we are going to find out the consequence of the oversexed media’s influence on the way
people view relationships. We used the question on how often do you watch T.V., 1 never and 7
being daily; and what do you consider a relationship to be? 1 being friendship and 4 being sex.
Media's Influence on Relationships 1
Correlations
How often do you watch T.V.?
Pearson Correlation
How often do you
What do you consider
watch T.V.?
a relationship?
1.000
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
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-.106
.234
133.000
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To find our answer we used a correlation analysis, where examined the connection
between their perceptions of a relationship with frequency that they watch television.2
Apparently, there is a weak negative relationship between the frequency T.V. is watched and
what they consider a relationship to be like. Thus, we can conclude that the media does not have
a negative impact on the way people view relationships, maybe it even has a positive affect on
the way they view relationships. Note that the only 1.12% of the dependent variable is explained
by the independent variable.
What factors cause the desensitization? (Multi-Linear Regression)
Coefficientsa
Model
1
Unstandardized
Standardized
Coefficients
Coefficients
B
(Constant)
T.V. Frequency
Family's openness
towards sex
Religious practice
Maslow's Hierarchy of
Needs
Relationship?
Std. Error
45.485
6.923
-.218
1.478
-.087
Beta
Collinearity Statistics
t
Sig.
Tolerance
VIF
6.570
.000
-.015
-.148
.883
.971
1.030
.807
-.011
-.108
.914
.965
1.037
-1.021
.370
-.273
-2.758
.007
.982
1.018
-.431
.863
-.049
-.499
.619
.987
1.013
1.238
1.749
.071
.708
.481
.968
1.033
a. Dependent Variable: Composite Measure of Comfort
If you watch the I Love Lucy show, notice how Lucy and Ricky sleep in separate beds.
This is because back in the sixties showing a couple sleep together would have been considered
risky; imagine how someone from that time period would view the way our media represents
sex. To understand their perception we will need to know what factors are causing us to slowly
2
Note: We are assuming that people who watch more T.V. are more mostly likely exposed to commercials like
Axe’s body spray.
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become numb towards sex on the media. This analysis will tell us what factors are causing us to
become used this rather private subject.
To answer this question we will be conducting a multi-regression analysis. Our
dependent variable would be the question pertaining to the respondent’s comfort level towards
sexually explicit image. Our independent variable would be the questions pertaining to the
respondent’s beliefs, geodemographics, religious practice, family up bringing, and values. In this
analysis we classified certain characteristics as conservative, such as having needs on the top of
the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, considering friendship a relationship, living in a rural area,
practicing religion on a daily basis, not talking about sex, and watch a minimum amount of T.V.
Most of the conservative characteristics were coded with lower numbers while the least
conservatives were coded with the highest number.
According to this analysis we can conclude that almost all the conservative
characteristics, except the respondent’s view on relationships, had a negative relationship with
their comfort towards sex. The first thing we checked was if all the VIF’s were less than 10, to
know if none of the variables related to each other, multi-collinearity. Fascinating! Conservatives
are most likely to feel comfortable and less sensitive towards sex than non-conservatives.
However, only the religious practice variable is significant. This means that we can only draw
conclusions based on this variable alone. Since the beta for religious practice and comfort level is
low, religious practice does not a strong impact on the person’s comfort level.
Family discussion about it and their comfort level towards the subject (ChiSquare Analysis).
This analysis will indicate to us weather or not we should segment the population and
perform further analysis on them separately. If we want to
determine weather or not sex sells we need to isolate all
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confounding variables, such as the respondent’s personal background. In this question we are
looking for the independence or dependence between the factors, the family’s openness towards
sex and the comfort level towards the sexually explicit advertisements. In this analysis the chisquare test will not be able to fully follow the minimum 5 per cell rule because, the data is so
skewed towards not talking to their parents about sex.
Factors that desensitize sex 1
Chi-Square Tests
Our null hypothesis in this
Asymp. Sig. (2-
Value
df
analysis is that having
sided)
.818a
2
.664
Likelihood Ratio
.768
2
.681
Linear-by-Linear Association
.304
1
.581
N of Valid Cases
129
Pearson Chi-Square
conversations about sex with your
parents will make you feel more
comfortable with the subject.
a. 3 cells (50.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum
expected count is 1.20.
From these results we will fail to
reject the null hypothesis, meaning that these two factors might be dependent from each other.
This means that the respondent’s family openness on sex might be a confounding variable in our
analysis, which means we need to segment our population.
Limitations
Some of the basic limitations would be that this survey may not be able to reach everyone
in our target market. It will only reach college students who own computers, and have access to
the internet. Because this group will have access to a computer and internet they would
predominantly be a part of the upper middle class, and since they have internet access they may
be more exposed to sexual explicit content than college students who do not have access to the
internet. Another obvious limitation would be that our sample will not be robust enough for us to
make valid conclusions about the general population. Our study is supposed to make conclusions
on all college students of the ages of 18 to 24 years, this population encompasses, 11,907,000
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million students. Our study will probably cover far less than 10 percent of the population making
our study invalid. However, even though our study will be statistically invalid it can still provide
future researchers with exploratory data.
This research will definitely be biased because sex is a subjective topic and a social
taboo. Since this country is so diverse, and since many cultures have different definitions for sex,
it is practically impossible to define exactly what sex is. In the survey we ask several questions
on how people define sex, however, measuring each respondent’s acceptance towards sex
according to their personal definition will be very complicated. For this reason we will segment
the respondents according to different components of their profile. Since sex is such a taboo
subject many respondents might feel uncomfortable answering many of the questions. This may
cause sampling errors, some respondents may refuse to answer some questions, or give false
information.
Recommendations on the Research Project
From what we did with our survey, we were actually able to do a sociological study on
sexual advertisements. We originally sought out to find an answer to our question, but with the
information we actually gathered, we can rethink the subject. As a result, we should have based
the study on how sexual desensitization of college students and see how that can affect sexual
advertisements. In result, we would be able to help our client by finding ways to grab the
attention of the consumer without using sex as an attention grabber as what has been thought for
so long.
Most companies that use sexual advertisements tend to use that as recognition for their
brand, which may or may not have any sexual reference to them other than advertising itself.
Rather than focusing on sex, they should create recognition for their brand with other ideas, such
as mascots or other types of ways to gain attention. For example, Mars Company has never used
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sex as a main point in their advertising due to the creation of mascots. These mascots grab the
attention and persuade the viewer to keep watching as the commercial progresses. As in time,
when you think of M&Ms, you tend to think about the commercial and what they would say.
This also is a factor in approval, where some cultures in the world might not allow sexual
advertisements into their home, which causes our client to lose out on other markets. The product
can be shared all over the world, but it can’t if it limits itself due to religion or gender.
In our survey, we limited our demographic questions to the bare minimum, including
religion, ethnicity, and practice of religion. From our results, we were able to find that gender
and religious practices were a main factor in how people perceive sexual advertisements. If we
used more factors such as shopping patterns, we might have been able to focus on our original
question and we would have been able to answer it.
Another problem we had was that we didn’t have many interval and ratio scaled
questions. We believed that was another factor why we weren’t able to answer our main
question. Another problem we had was that we didn’t have many open-ended questions as well.
If we did, we would have been able to give more insight on how the respondents felt about some
of the advertisements we displayed in the survey.
In our survey, we failed to do a test analysis before we actually handed out the survey.
This would have helped us understand our findings faster and we would have been able to
change the survey to fit out main question about sex and advertising.
Another problem we had with survey was that we initially did not stay intact with our
construct table. We got lost in what questions we were asking which resulted in our
miscalculations for the survey. Instead of answering our original question, we were able to find
more information about the sociological aspect towards sexual advertisements though. This
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helped us understand what we might have to prove in a future where sex in advertising is a main
goal for marketing products to a younger demographic.
In the end, we are able to learn from our mistakes and take this to future projects we may
have to do in our line of work. Also, we found that this project has shown us that while looking
for answer to a question, you may find more than what you expected. Ours was a mistake and
didn’t help us at all, but in the end, it gave us an insight on how actual marketing research teams
might have to go through in their line of work.
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To:
UIC Students
From: The Sol
Marketing Research Team
Date: February 23, 2009
Re:
Sex Appeal Survey
We are a UIC marketing research team investigating the effectiveness of sexual appeal in advertising.
This research is directed to help the firm, Bartle Bogle Hegarty. Bartle Bogle Hegarty is a global
marketing firm that represents Levi jeans, Unilever’s Axe body line, Johnny Walker, Smirnoff, and
Vaseline. This company is known to be one of the most proactive advertising firms in the country.
This research is designed to help us understand the big question, “does sex sell?” Our team of researchers
created a survey to examine and measure Bartle Bogle Hegarty’s objectives. This questionnaire is
designed for UIC students, within the ages of 18-25. The participation in this survey will greatly
appreciated and help BBH create offers that will best fit your needs.
Please feel free to be candid, this survey is completely anonymous and confidential. We greatly
appreciate your cooperation. If you have any questions or comments regarding this survey please feel free
to contact us.
Thank you,
Team Sol
Mabel Oza:
ozamabel@hotmail.com
Chris Lardizbal: clardi2@uic.edu
Dragana Slavoc: exciarra@gmail.com
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