Todd Wheeler

Growing up, I was inundated with savvy ads selling everything from beer to band-aids. Marketers utilizing print ads, internet ads and television commercials promoted products from computers to automobiles by employing sexy male and female “models” to endorse their products. I learned early in life that I had five senses and each one was being employed as I surfed through the hippest and slickest advertising gimmicks. Men will be enticed and allured by ads featuring an exotic femme fatale; women by the sexiest and latest discovery rating a “10” on the hunk-o-meter.

My five senses were fully engaged—I reacted viscerally, not intellectually – to many ads that I saw more as propaganda than as product endorsement. The beautiful model did not tell me anything informative about the newest Toyota or Honda, but if I could purchase one, I could attract that type of hottie. Advertisers preyed on the hope that I could be intellectually seduced into purchasing a product based on the “sex appeal” of an ad and fall hypnotically under its influence as it overtook my sensual vulnerabilities. The bikini-clad model replete with flowing golden locks and mountainous cleavage could entice me to buy a 1921 hubcap and build the rest of a car around it. Wow! Was I a victim of my own libido?

Overcome with raging hormones, my intellectual reasoning was compromised as I was drawn more to the sexy model than to the product. Did that affect my purchasing decisions as I matured? Certainly, it did! I bought magazines that would feature the “sexy” ads. I paid particular attention to the provocative ads on TV and the internet. Psychologically, I associated many of my “favorite” brands with the “girls” who endorsed them. Yes, that was the brand for me!

I am no longer easily influenced! I have matured! Now, I will buy a product based on the integrity of the brand—I have to receive “quality” for my purchasing buck! I just take a cold shower and surf the ads and the girl does not have to be so pretty.

Does sex sell you? Do celebrity endorsements sell you? What sells you?

Graphic Credit:
animationfactory.com