Hold The Phone: Sex Doesn’t Sell (Especially to Women)
The results of research conducted by Ellie Parker and Adrian Furnham of University College London suggests that even if a commercial is sexually enticing, people will still fail to remember it. Interestingly, The Economist article on the research, “The Big Turnoff,” (which was released in the March issue of Applied Cognitive Psychology), reports that, in one of the three experiments conducted, “men were more likely to remember sexual advertisements (albeit not the brand advertised) whereas women were more likely to remember non-sexual advertisements.”
But note – while the sex may have interested men enough to remember an ad, it did not help them remember the brand. So… consider that the next time you want to employ sex to sell your wine, car or climbing gear brand (not like you ever would, you savvy marketer.)
