Saturday, November 7, 2009

Do ads that use sex to sell their products degrade women?


It must be one very effective marketing tool? I mean the use of sex to sell products. There is almost no commodity pushed in the market that does not use sex to get the attention it badly needs. Even bloggers use it to sell their blogs. Since every ad that uses sex takes the face of a woman, this raises the question on whether or not this does not degrade women. Does it or does it not? What is your take?

5 comments:

  1. Just like drinking water, sex is a natural part of life. Questions about "degrading" stem from "fear" and "jealousy". I would agree that there are situations where "fear" and "jealousy" are used (in the guise of "sex") to market things. These cases could very well be degrading. However, a picture of a woman or a man smiling suggestively, in the interest of selling tomato juice, is not degrading.

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  2. yes, they all do it....that's i think the is the easiest way to get attention. Once i read in paper..... " Sex sells everything "

    hope that will change....but it is the truth rite now.......

    degrading women.....i don't know....its target audience is both men and women.....think if it's degrading then its for both.....

    \,,,/

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  3. Hmm both sexes maybe. The fact is that men write most of these ads. They'd just spent ten years showing women giving men abuse, smashing their possessions, belittling them, but not sexually as much as socially. Now all the ad agencies have pulled back, the recession means pushing wholesome value, families, etc. I nearly went into the advertising trade after I graduated, they take on 16 yr old runners and psych grads and teach them all to literally but oh so subtly hate the consumer. The truth is, if they could get away with it, everyone and anyone would become a target for simplistic and often debasing spectacle. The only people who really are being abused are those who are vain enough to take the job and prance around on TV. Sex as with every other aspect in life isn't enough to sell anything any more. The advertising industry is slowly dying, they've burned all their bridges and started spinning for politicians and bad rep corporations with slave labour and pollution records these days.

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  4. As far as being degrading I think it all depends on how it's being done.

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  5. I don't find it degrading what I do find degrading is someone stupid enough to buy a product just because there is a sexy man or woman fronting the product.

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