Sex sells... but not the way you think

Sex sells. We've all heard that old adage. The problem is, what it sells is a very small range of products.

And in some cases, it sells less than traditional ads.So why is it still used so frequently?

For instance, all those ads from the '60s that used sexy women to sell unrelated products like cars would never run today, right?

Well, how then to explain a 2011 ad that imagines a race between a Nissan Juke and a woman in a bikini?

The car wins. But then we watch slow motion, close-up footage of the woman running. Finally, the announcer hands her a cold drink, because she "must be starving."

Because we've seen such scenarios over and over, we — and most marketers — assume that sexual imagery helps sell products.

As in a 2012 Liquid Plumr ad. We see a woman in a grocery store picking the product up, and fantasizing about sexy plumbers visiting her home.

The theory is that sexy bodies capture our attention and direct it toward the product. But a 2015 study at Ohio State University found that sex in ads actually leads to an overall negative impact on brand perception.

And according to the study, the effect on memory, perception and buying intention gets worse as sexual content increases — the way it does in a 2011 ad for JBS Men's Perfection Underwear.

As the underwear creation process is explained, we see bikini-clad women adopting extremely sexual poses as they manufacture the briefs.

Now, you could say there's at least a slight connection between men's underwear and sexy women.

And in fact, the Ohio State researchers noted that sex does sell when the product itself is sexual in nature — as is the case in this 2016 ad for a product sold in Bangladesh. 

We see a female police officer carrying a toy gun. She arrives at a man's home and holds up handcuffs, cuffs him, and then walks him into the bedroom.

At the end, the product is revealed to be U & Me brand condoms.

Other research focused specifically on a 2015 Super Bowl commercial for the restaurant chain Carl's Jr.

In the spot, we see a seemingly naked woman walking through a farmers market. Eventually, she's revealed to be wearing a bikini, and we see her eating the new "all-natural burger," explaining "I love going all-natural."

As reported by Ad Age, the advertising research firm Ameritest found Carl's Jr. was remembered by an impressive 94 per cent of people who were shown the ad, thanks to its longstanding reputation for running sexy ads.

But the number who said they planned to visit Carl's after seeing the ad was only 27 per cent, which is much lower than the 43 per cent average score for restaurants.

According to the Ohio State researchers, we are evolutionarily predisposed to paying attention to emotionally arousing cues, like sex. But since our processing power has limits, when we see sex in ads, it overloads our cognitive resources. So we think about the sex, and little else. 

The one instance when sexual commercials are actually effective, according to the study, is when they run in an equally sexual program.