Essay

“On the first commercial I have ever made was naked woman. It was a mistake. Not because there was nudity, but because this nudity did not have anything in common with the product – cooking stove (David Ogilvy 1983).” These and similar problems advertising industry faces for decades. Popular statement that “sex sells” do not have to be true anymore. People are overwhelmed by images full of any kind of sexual content, and does not react to them same as the people 50 years ago. Because of the negative effects of sexual images that are people being exposed to, national governments are trying to put some regulations on traditional media meaning TV, Radio, and Print, but there is not any regulation on the internet. Popular servers have to regulate them selves.

Controversial question should be answer to the question, does the sex still sell products?  More and more studies show that people does not really pay that much attention to this kind of advertising, on the other hand clips of Axe, which is the company that based its advertising on sex, are the ones most watched on the server YouTube. Maybe that should be that case, that people do not pay that much attention to traditional advertising anymore, but rather are influnced by this new kind of interactive advertisng.

Huge difference is also between the commercials directed to the man, than to the woman. In commercials for man, according to Michaela Marksová-Tominová from Gender Studies of Czech Republic, woman are displayed not on the same level as man, sometimes they are used as the points of sexual attraction, which helps to create a social stereotypes, which we were not borned with, but were created during our lifes as a consequence of multiple exposure to such scenes. Further more she states, that man are not dispalyed as the part of the family, which again creates some sorts of stereotypes. On the other hand advertising for woman does not stereotype genders, but should have another negative influence. Models in perfect shape, should have negative impact on young girls and their weigh.
On the other hand, sexual advertising should have also posssitive effects. Advertising for condoms, which always appeals to sex, prevent people from sexual disseses. According to Mikel Soal proffesor at Unyp it was a big issue twenty years ago in the United States to make-clear to the general public, that advertising for condoms has more possitive values than negative. Parents thought that advertising of this kind makes young people want to have a sexual relationship. They did not care that much about the disseses. But as the public get more educated, they ussualy switch their opinion.

In coclusion, although sex in advertising should have some negative implications, there is also a possitive site of a coin. Old media are to the some level of degree regulated by the government, this is not true about the internet, but as we can see fro the current situation, we are not overwhelmed by advertising with sexual content. In my oppinion the industry is going to censor itself. This is caused by the pressure from to clients to the Advertising companies, they want campaigns that sells. And thet is not always the case that sex does.