Sex Sells - Is It True In Internet Marketing Too ?

In the real world, "sex" ( not making out ) is used as a tool of persuasion to draw interest to a particular product, for purpose of sale, generally using attractive models.

Images of pretty women often appear in ads even without connection to the product being sold.

I was wondering if any marketers use any technique which directly or indirectly makes use of "Sex" to sell their products or service.

Marketers promoting "sex related" / porn industry are not counted. I'm referring to other general products, like a dating product or any other thing.

Thanks in advance for your participation.

Regards,
~G

 

Those who do lost me as a customer. Why would I care about their product when there's a big boobed girl smiling in the advertisement?

 

You don't use GoDaddy then?

 

Nope. You know the reason

 

Lol.. yeah big daddy is a good example. But I wonder if their biz has seen any positive side after getting those revs up !!

Rich Jerk is another guy, who kinda makes use of it, and he is successful upto an extent !

Keep your thoughts coming in folks .

~G

 

Sex sells, definately, it has always been a proven form of advertising for many of years all the way back to that swedish shaving cream ad. Look at the top keywords, sex, naked, w/e. The thing is, if its not what they were expecting, meaning no sexy naked women they may leave.

 

I think Victoria's Secret is a good example. Without those models they would be just another clothing company.

 

They come looking for something - They find something they were not expecting - They might be tempted to pick the product, lets say if it is "how to impress a girl in bed" ... But wonder what the refund rates will be like .

I personally have never been able to mix Sex + marketing. There are a few innovative ways, just want to know how many of you have used such tricks to get some eye balls rolling on your advertisements.

If any one has done split tests, what has the result been like ?

~G

 

Sells, but I would not use it. Feels as if I would be selling myself out as I am more about ethical things and believe there is far too much, which influences young children.

 

what about the gay people? lol

 

Very good point Venture. But I wonder how many of them really think about it. Without anyone monitoring the kids these days, I guess the young ones fall for it easily !

Appreciate your thoughts .

~G

 

Feeling left out? lol

Sex is like religion: it could end the world

 

It really does depend on what you are marketing.
If there is the slightest relevance of your business with women/sex/relationships and so forth, sex does and WILL sell.
You must think about your business or product and see if you can connect it somehow with sex. If you can, it'll sell.
Obviously, if you are marketing toys for kids for example, sex is out of the option.

 

NO since it's pretty easy to get sex these days than it was in the 50's.

 

I don't doubt that sex sells.

But I believe I read somewhere that a higher percentage of women are
browsing the internet than men.

Perhaps you should get some statistics as to who is likely to visit your
site. You can still use sex - just change the gender! Or isn't that
remark acceptable nowadays?

 

I do not use it but since I have added pictures from a few biker rallies of some girls to my gallery I have seen a fresh influx of traffic.

 

Ahan... biker girls huh. Do you track where the source is coming from? Word of mouth publicity or someone else blogging about the biker girls?

~G

 

When people are talking about sex sells it not just to women, its both women or men depending on the market. If your trying to sell deodorant ex: axe; putting women in the commercial is going to work, same for go daddy more than 70% of people who are buying domains, are men. They also used women in there super bowl ads because mostly men once again are watching it. When it comes to women, look at Victoria secret, they use sexy women to sell there product because it makes the women who buy the product think they look sexy. It depends on the market and how you use it, but basically sex does sell

 

This is a good point. I think that men are a lot more likely to be enticed in to buying things by sexy images than women though. Apparently (I'm a man) for women sex is more of a psychological thing, perhaps it is possible to entice them in other ways rather than pictures. Any girls here got the hots for the Rich Jerk? (jk, lol)

I based the marketing of one of my old sites around being sexy + it worked really well, I did a lot better than most other sites that offered the same thing that weren't sexy. I needed to grab peoples attention in a sea of copycat sites + it really did the trick.

There are implications to consider, if you rely on sex to advertise your site you may find it harder to get accepted in to advetising networks or even paypal if it is too risque, they have a no sex policy.

I don't use it at all for any of my current sites, it doesn't really have any place in them and I wouldn't want it to.


-Gaz

 

Gaz,

If the site you are referring to does not use the technique anymore, can you reveal what exactly you did and how you achieved it .

You don't have to reveal the niche, but just the excerpt.


~G