Let's Talk About Sex, Baby!

It's no doubt that advertising is a competitive industry. Especially in niche magazines, there are multiple ads for the same type of product because those products appeal to the audience. But how does one advertiser stand out from the other four-hundred pages in a magazine, intriguing a reader to purchase their product?

Vanity Fair is by far my favorite magazine, so my critique is hardly a negative one of the Conde Nast publication. It's like an ice cream shop, in print --- lengthy feature stories about politics and culture, fashion spreads and the fab life of celebrities, today and yesterday --- different flavors for different taste buds, all in one place. Not only has Vanity Fair succeeded in making a sundae of editorial, but its advertising accounts for more than half the magazine. Let's just call it the cherry on top. With sprinkles.

I wouldn't be persuaded to buy two scoops of plain vanilla ice cream, unless, maybe, it was coated with sprinkles. To sell something in a market that has duplicates of duplicates of duplicates, advertisers have to offer something to the consumer that the other advertisers can't, won't, or don't offer. Often taboo to discuss, sex, subliminal or obvious, is used in advertising, to perhaps encourage readers that they, too, can look sexy or attract the opposite sex if they use the product.

The cover of the October issue validates this sales tactic. Nicole Kidman, like the headline suggests, bares all, with strawberry-stained lips, she is literally pulling open her blouse to expose perfectly contoured cleavage, accentuated by a gold necklace. Her eight-page spread, however, contains six tasteful, fully-clothed photos, in which she is referred to as a "lady." But who’s to determine that a photograph of Kidman in a tight, blue and white striped sweater isn’t sexy?

Despite the seven other sexually-suggestive advertisements in the October issue --- including Tom Ford's men's fragrance, featuring a man with an unbuttoned shirt and a woman's hand caressing his sweaty chest, and MAC makeup's sultry pin-up girl in glittery lingerie, holding a finger in her mouth --- Dolce and Gabbana's most recent campaign, featuring naked men and explicit poses, some even portraying women with scissors, has quite possibly started a whole new sexual revolution in advertising.

So, why does sex sell? Our generation, compared to our grandparents, our parents, and for some, simply our older siblings, is becoming numb to sex. We're subjected to sex on such a regular basis that it hardly occurs to us when we encounter it first hand. However, younger readers who may not have a fully developed understanding of what sex is, might be more influenced than the average twenty-something magazine reader. Sex education in junior high doesn't teach that sex isn't glamorous, and both boys and girls might develop lower self esteem, or engage in sex at younger ages, because they begin comparing themselves to the advertisements they see.