Simmering ads: Money in the bank

Picture this scene: a group of male friends relax on a beach on a Sunday afternoon. They are laughing as they pass around a bottle of a popular alcoholic beverage. Suddenly the laughter dies as all eyes stray to three bikini-clad women who are walking along the beach. No one speaks. The men are almost in a hypnotic trance. Eye contact is made, and there is definite flirting. The women walk away to a soundtrack which implies that this is the life. In another ad for pool equipment, a toned woman clad in a bikini is lying on a float. “Wouldn’t you like to be her pool boy?” the ads asks. “It’s everything she needs. Strong. Silent. Trouble-free.”

For years the female figure has been used as an advertising ploy to sell products, preying on the male instinct of desire. It has been noted that many of these products use sexual association to connect with the buying public. However, advertisers have found it easier to make the link to men than women by playing on man’s instinctive rather than intellectual view of the world, according to one expert. What that means is money in the bank,, said one financial analyst. He said it was the same the world over, noting that both local and global advertising companies spent hefty sums to keep the edge. “More customers translates into positive cash in-flows,” he said. Still, it all depends on the product: cars, cigarettes, cologne, beer, products for the most part, bought by men. Therefore, what else can an advertising firm do, but entice men to buy certain brands of these products. And what better way to do this than by using a beautiful woman as the sales pitch. According to Chester Paris creative director of Ross Advertising Limited associating a product with a beautiful woman is the easiest form of stimulating the imagination and cultivating the desire to acquire various things.

He said, “From way back, the society has been a male-dominated one, and it still is in some respects. The feminine figure has been one of the most obvious objects of desire.” “Therefore, it is linked to other objects such as cars or houses which people desire to own or to things which are thought to make one part of the in-crowd, such as beer.” He said  that in the case of a particular brand of local beer, one of the agency’s clients, they are exploiting the social aspect of a man attracting a woman or being able to attract one. Demographics have shown that 85 percent of beer is consumed by men rather than women. Therefore, it would make sense to aim most beer commercials at men. Additionally, since there is little difference between one brand of beer and another, advertisers are faced with the task of making one particular brand more appealing to the consumer than another. The advertisements must induce the difference between them. “It is almost equated to, ‘If you don’t drink this particular brand of  beer, you can’t get a woman,’” Paris said. “Sex has been used to convey this kind of thing.”

But the question remains, does sex sell? Paris admits that it does but it depands on the product in question. “Brands of alcohol in general,” he maintained, “tend to use the sexual culture of the country to pitch their products.” “The whole concept of Carnival, the costumes, the behaviour, tends to suggest that sex is an integral part of our culture. To be seen as beautiful and macho has also been a part of our culture, emphasised by what is seen on American television.” Damon Leon, creative director at Rostant Advertising agrees that international trends have had an influence on local advertising techniques. However, he maintained that sexual suggestion in advertising was downplayed in Trinidad, when compared to the US, UK and Europe, where he said, complete nudity was not uncommon. He said, “here it is not as rampant because our advertising laws and methods do not allow this and we are not that kind of society.”

Leon disagreed that these types of ads are basically aimed at men, since he noted, there are some types of products which target men and some which target women. Paris is of the view that very few commercials use the male figure to sell products. His point is verified by expert research which shows that photos of women used in advertising tend to focus more on their bodies, while photos of men are found to focus more on their faces. One study found that 65 percent of newspaper and magazine photos of men were devoted to their face, compared to 45 percent of those which capture a woman’s face. This, the study suggests, implied that a man’s importance came from his intellect and personality, while a woman’s importance was linked to her general attractiveness and figure. Paris drew reference to an advertisement some years ago which incited much controversy when a nude male figure was used. He said, “It is not a problem to see a naked or semi-naked woman in an advertisement. But a nude man causes conflict because of the fact that society is still male-dominated in some respects. This has been difficult to change.” Women, he said, were not as easily stimulated by sexual association as men were. Instead, they were more liable to be attracted to the concept of achieving success or breaking the misconceptions of the female in society.

According to Dr Richard Taflinger, in his article titled, “Taking Advantage. You and me, Babe: Sex in Advertising,” to sell to a woman, advertising relies on the centuries-old concept of how men and women relate — romance. “Romance,” he wrote, “fits into the woman’s intellectual view of relationships since its major element, courtship, the process by which men apply to be and women selects mate, is the discovery of how the male does or does not satisfy her societal criteria for a suitable sexual partner.” Ads aimed at women, he continued, achieve the romantic approach by using stereotypical images such as soft light and music or a dating partner. These ads sell the products on the basis that their purchase will give the woman this feeling of romance in her life. Julie Harris creative director at Lonsdale Saatchi and Saatchi told the other side of the story, noting that while the age old axiom, “sex sells,” has been around for decades, there were other means of getting the consumer’s attention. “People tend to respond to a good idea,” she said, “so we try to engage their imagination with something that stimulates them intellectually and emotionally.”

They also  “tend to be titillated by sexual association and in the absence of a good idea, it will get their attention. Nowadays, we don’t want to be exploitative and using sex in an overt way tends to do this.” Leonardo Azzelino creative director at McCann Erickson shared her view, saying that  advertising agencies should try to break the mold, keeping in mind  that they have to “speak the language of the people.” “Advertising depends on the market,” he said. “You have to talk to the people. Some people think that these simple images, like ladies in bikinis and so on, is language that is easy to understand. This hits below the belt.” Azzelino, who has been involved in the field of advertising for 15 years and who has travelled extensively, said that many other countries were now moving away from sexual symbolism in marketing to humourism and even sarcasm. “The local market,” he maintained, “is not as refined in terms of communication to the public.” “The bottom line is that you have to know your target and try not to resort to stereotypes. Unfortunately a lot of the time, stereotypes are involved.”