SEX AND ADVERTISING
Low Involvement/ Emotional
This category involves also those products that provide ephemeral gratification like a chocolate, movies or even a magazine. This type appeals more to the senses and may also be sexual. The technique involved here is that it should be flashy so that it can easily get the attention of the viewers. Moreover, it has to be alluring and have a promise of gratification.
Low Involvement/ Rational
These products are like necessities, as we buy them without thinking much. A McDonald’s burger would be a necessity for most people. How this theory works is that the advertiser should convince the buyer to switch to their product instead of their competitor’s. A common method for this is to create incentives like coupons and special offers, further dragging to consumers to their side.
This second category includes all important business purchases, like purchase of infrastructure, machines, office location (sometimes), etc. For consumers, these mainly include all purchases that involve high costs.
Image source: http://files.coloribus.com/files/adsarchive/part_1199/11993205/file/ikea-rolling-cart-small-13159.jpg
High Involvement/ Rational
This category includes all purchases that reflect a personality like office design, furniture and sometimes even employees. For consumers, it is more like an expensive holiday trip or a valuable piece of jewelry, all depending upon the taste and preferences of the individual and his purchasing power.
THEORIES IN ADVERTISING
Advertising has been growing popularity and has become establishment in society; before we detail the effects of advertising and its efficacy, we would like to mention and dwell into a few advertising theories. Now while there is essentially no difference between a theory for sexual advertisement and non sexual one as the same theory is applied in different ways for both the aforementioned situations, nevertheless, we will expound upon the ways a theory can be used for non sexual advertising and sexual advertising as well.
CONSUMER INVOLVEMENT THEORIES
This theory mainly involves understanding the mindset of the audience of the advertisement. While it may appear to be rather a very vague theory, it is more simple and insightful than others, like consumer research.
How does it work?
Simple, first there is a chart with an emotional scale and a rational scale. The emotional scale depicts impulse and desire while the rational scale depicts logic and reasoning. Involvement on the other hand, means the amount of thought a consumer puts into during a purchase. Therefore there are now 4 possibilities:
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High Involvement/ Emotional
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High Involvement/ Rational
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Low Involvement/ Emotional
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Low Involvement/ Rational
High Involvement/ Emotional
As the name says, this theory is about passing subliminal messages through advertising, ones that cannot be grasped on a conscious level. With the advent of new technologies, this method has become all the more effective, especially via television. This view was put forward in Vance Packard’s 1957 “The Hidden Persuaders”.
He posited that this form of advertising used emotionally loaded messages to manipulate the viewers, and thus lead them to the required product. However, this method is more efficient in television, as the human eye only records 24 frames per second. Hence, if a small picture is put in for such a short period of time that is not seen, but perceived as the unconscious part perceives it.
Hidden messages are in a lot of logos of companies like Fedex, Wendy’s and Tostitos to name a few. One brilliant example is:
The Sublimal Message Theory
Image source: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1967-Kelloggs-Corn-Flakes-Ad-He-Claims-you-can-Un-Split-a-Split-Personality-/300975648107
The cornflakes advertisement in this case simply shows a very elderly, well-educated doctor having some cornflakes. Initially, it purports good health as a doctor is having them, however on a closer level, there is a hidden message that having cornflakes promotes not only physical but also mental health as the person who is eating them is (or at least looks) very well educated.
An example of this theory is the success of Axe ads. What axe essentially does is that it plays with the normal fantasies of men and women, especially those high on hormones.
Their research shows that most college going men think that they are better looking than average and a quarter of college going females think likewise.
Another thing about Axe is that it hasn’t tried to reinvent itself as every year it gets new consumers. This consistency also shows the imitative desire that Axe plays on. Another facet about Axe is the fact that is uses a lot of technology.
Out of all the Unilever products, Axe has the most investment in digital technology; there are product placements on video games, websites and most of all the number of TV advertisements, which can be annoying to some extent.
CASE STUDY
IMITATIVE DESIRE
This theory is based upon the findings of Rene Girard who posited that people have a desire to become someone else. This theory is a foundational theory upon, which advertisement stands. The reason why this is such a long-standing theory is because it is impossible to become someone else, hence this strange desire keeps alive.
Thus this also shows the science that ads are not merely one-way communication but more of a projection of a person’s desires. This aspect of advertisement has a huge potential for future technologies, which targets this issue.
This theory is applicable by the fact that our imagination is unlimited and that a lot of ads, especially sexual advertisements, use people “enjoying” a particular product, which consequently raises (pun intended) the desires of those who watch such sexual advertisements.
This theory of advertising basically focuses on the attitudes of the people, and the likelihood of them getting convinced by the ads. It focuses on two aspects, i.e., the merits of the complex arguments and simplistic associations.
Consequently there are two processing routes: Central route and the Peripheral Route
The central route is very matter heavy and it is determined by the person’s response to the advertisement. The more serious types of advertisements like contraception pill ads, police advertisements, and donations to child support charities take the central route. These ads require a lot of attention from the viewers, which is captured through the seriousness of the ads.
Peripheral Route: No elaboration on the benefits of the products through a message. The main focus is on the surroundings behind the message and the way the message is presented through its attractiveness. The main goal of this route is to create an ephemeral change to gain the viewers attention and in this aspect differentiates itself from the central route. Thus the sexual advertisements can be applied through this route.
To determine, which route to take, the motivation of the person has to be taken into consideration along with the ability of the person to process the message. As is fairly evident, the peripheral route focuses more on the motivation of the person rather than on the ability while the central route focuses more on the ability to process information rather than the motivation.
Elaboration Likelihood Model