Sex in Advertising - How Advertiser influencing to consumer impact and ethical issues
What is sex in advertising?
As stated by Richmond and Hartman (1982), "Every media consumer is alert to 'sex in advertising.' Its pervasive use and misuse are constantly around us and typically elicit strong criticism”. As the invertors can view that, the use of sex in advertising has been happening for several decades and the reason for it? - It works. However, many peoples may not exactly know what sex in advertising is. Some people consider subconscious content to be sex in advertising, whereas others only consider sexual information that is readily visible.
Sexual information, defined by Harris (1994) as “any representation that portrays or implies sexual interest, behavior, or motivation”, is often integrated within the ad as images or verbal elements .As follow U.S. Court Justice Potter Stewart(1964) described pornography, "I know it when I see it," similarly vague descriptions are used to convey sex in advertising (Strong, 1979).
In fact, when the general public considers sex in advertising, a wide variety of exemplars come to mindset. Others describe sexual images inserted into ads, for some individuals, “fetishized” objects and parts of the body come to mind (Schroeder & Borgerson, 2003).
More formally, sex in advertising can be considered mediated messages (i.e., television commercials, magazine ads) containing sexual information with the persuasive purpose of selling branded goods (Reichert, Heckler, & Jackson, 2001). Advertising is commonly defined as "any paid form of nonpersonal communication about an organization, product, service, or idea by an identified sponsor" (Belch & Belch, 2001).
As follow to Ken theory that sex a ...