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From: laura@hoptoad.uucp (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.motss
Subject: Re: offensive advertising
Message-ID: <415@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Wed, 8-Jan-86 15:57:19 EST
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.415
Posted: Wed Jan  8 15:57:19 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 10-Jan-86 06:19:22 EST
References: <4731@alice.UUCP> <35@sbcs.UUCP> <366@ho95e.UUCP> <8239@ucla-cs.ARPA> <237@birtch.UUCP>
Reply-To: laura@hoptoad.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 25
Keywords: sex in adv
Xref: linus net.women:7921 net.motss:2170

In article <237@birtch.UUCP> oleg@birtch.UUCP (Oleg Kiselev) writes:
>
>Then why DO the advertisers use the "sex" approach if it does not appeal to the
>target audience?
>
>What ARE the reactions to "sexy" ads from groups other than heterosexual men :
>women (of all sexual orientations), homosexual men?

The sex approach *does* appeal to the target audience.  Show one scantilly
clad female.  The average heterosexual male wants to get that female, and
the average female wants to *be* that female.  Of course there are minorities
who object to it, and for whom the pitch doesn't work -- but the idea is
to get the majority.

The thing that I always find astonishing is that the whole thing can work
in the first place.  The sex approach seems perfectly reasonable if you
are selling lingerie, but do people actually buy cars like this?  The
answer appears to be a resounding ``yes'' -- which depresses me.


-- 
Laura Creighton		
sun!hoptoad!laura		(note new address!  l5 will still
ihnp4!hoptoad!laura		 work for a while....)
hoptoad!laura@lll-crg.arpa