Research Paper on Influence of Sexually Appealing Advertisement on Customers' Purchasing Trends

Introduction

Carl's Jr. Restaurants LLC is a multinational company dealing with fast food. The company was founded in 1914 by Carl Karcher and his wife Margaret Karcher in Los Angeles (Maurya & Singh np). In 1945, Carl opened a fully functional restaurant, Carl's Drive-In Barbecue, in California, which became a success enabling the couple to expand the business by establishing two Carl's Jr. restaurants in Anaheim in 1956 (Maurya & Singh np). The company is a private subsidiary owned by CKE Restaurant Holdings, Inc with its headquarters at Franklin Tennessee. As of 2019, the company, under Andrew F Puzder, operated in more than 22 countries and has approximately 10,000 employees (Maurya & Singh np). Despite its stability in the fast-food industry as it accumulates a revenue of $2 billion, Carl's Jr faces stiff competition from other multinational companies such as McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's. Although the company experiences success, it has received massive criticism for its consistent use of sex in advertising its products such as French fries, hamburgers, soft drinks, salads, and chicken. For example, in 2005, unlike the previous years, the company launched a sex advertisement of a bikini-clad model (Maurya & Singh np). In May the same year, it again launched the Paris Hilton campaign featuring Paris Hilton in a sexy and provoking swimsuit.

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Additionally, despite Carl's Jr utilizing such marketing strategies to attract male consumers, it received different reactions from the public. However, the company continued with marketing, as seen in 2015, during the all-natural campaign featuring Charlotte McKinney revealing her bikini while consuming an all-natural burger. The marketing strategy actively made the company to realize increased sales and revenue, and excellent media impression across the globe (Kieler np). Consequently, in March 2017, the company coincided with the excessive pressure and released a nonsexual advertisement through the Carl Hardee Sr. campaign that emphasized on rebranding the company not to focus on boobs but food as per the brand objectives (Marzilli np). It strived to eradicate the provocative approach that it adopted in the preceding years to concentrate on promoting fast foods and eliminating its competition. Nevertheless, such an extreme step away from the alluring advertisements resulted in adverse effects on the company as its sales consistently dropped from 2017 to 2019 (Marzilli np). The revenue movement of Carl's Jr actively denotes the influence of sexually appealing advertisement on customers' purchasing trends.

History of Erotica in Advertisements

Sex in advertising has become a common trend in modern society as different companies utilize sexually appealing advertisements and visual campaigns to attract their consumers. Since 1871, when Pearl Tobacco brand incorporated a naked maiden rising from waves on its cigarette packages cover and tremendously boosting its sale to become the leading American Cigarette brand, the trend has continued in different industries (Sivulka 40). After the success of Pearl Tobacco, W. Duke & Sons also utilized the same marketing strategy to increase the sales of their tobacco products. By slipping in trading cards with images of sexually attractive women in every cigarette package, it became a dominant company in the industry by 1890 (Sivulka 48). Sex in the advertisement not only dominated the tobacco industry but also spread to other sectors. For example, in 1971, Jovan Musk Oil, which included sexual depictions, entendre, and portrayals of fragrance, realized a boost in its revenue from $1.5 million to $77 million by 1978 (Sivulka 79). In the clothing industry, Benetton, an Italian clothing company, massed competitive dominance after including unusual erotic pictures such as a priest kissing a nun. The use of sex in advertisements has evolved in the 21st century, where advertisements have become more direct and open (Business News Daily np). Despite the gender equality and sexism campaigns, many consumers seem to be attracted to the sexually branded products than neutral products. Sex has been the most excellent motivator and inspiration behind massive sales and increased revenue that many companies accumulate.

Buyers' Perception of Sex in Advertisements

Sex in advertisements has been utilized for many generations, especially in the 21st century, to attract customers to buy specific products. Regardless of the preconceived notion that it is slowly becoming an ineffective marketing strategy as the society evolves towards sex activism, the approach consistently empowers companies to accumulate profits (Business News Daily np). The fundamental principle and objective of marketing is gaining consumers' attention. Whether marketing strategies contradict social norms or arouse conflicts, marketers only considered the perception of the target market segment. For example, the Advertising Women of New York Association, a body that enforces advertising policies, has continuously advocated that using sex in advisement is a traditional concept that only objectifies women and stereotype them as the weaker gender. It continued that the stereotype that such sex advertisements discourage the purchase of products associated with the negative representation of one gender. However, contrary to such a notion, companies like Calvin Klein experience an increase in sales and revenue. Carl's Jr also attracted many consumers between 2005 and 2017, when it used sexually appealing advertisements.

Many consumers have a healthy attitude towards explicit imagery used in the advertisement as they often favor the model of the opposite sex. Since society creates diverse constriction that deters people not only from exploring but also discussing sexual content, exposing such content in advertisements explicitly attract consumers of the opposite sex (O'Barr, np). For example, Carl's Jr sales increased steadily from 2005 to 2017 as they used sexually appealing ads of female models to attract thirsty young men. Although contemporary society advocates for gender equality, respect, and equity, where both men and women are sex activists, depicting one gender as socially powerless, many consumers continue to purchase products from firms that use sexually arousing advertisements rather than individuals' businesses with neutral ads (Wirtz & Zimbres 180). Sex continues to sell as advertisers use sex as a coercive language to appeal to people, whether through physical attractiveness, double entendre, nudity, or sexual behavior (O'Barr np). Since nudity and erotic images capture prospects' attention, and physical attractiveness command respect, and desirable influence, many people will flock such brands. Therefore, when Carl's Jr changed its marketing strategy from the racy adverts, it fell behind and lost many consumers, who the sexy and scantily dressed models attracted.

Psychoanalysis of Sexually Appealing Advertisements

Advertisements tend to engage consumers through the "scopophilia" that accounts for the positioning of consumers in the general visual discourse (Oswald, 35). The semiotic cues in the advertisement trigger the consumer's desire to purchase the product. Staging the subjects in the discourse of an ad, not only the particulars of their image, places the consumer in the product's world (Oswald, 35). Advertisements relate symbols representing consumer's desires with products. Marketers can use common and already known sign systems or language and appropriate the association between the portrayer and the portrayed to communicate its brand in terms of the relationship. Therefore, advertisements do not formulate meaning but rather translates meaning using a sign system that the audience is already aware of. Consumers purchase products that meet their desires. The widespread desire across the world is to be sexually attractive. Therefore, the best way to sell products is to relate them to sex.

Impact of Sexualized Advertisements on Consumer Attention

Marketers' shift to sex appeal advertisements proves to clutch the viewers' attention, turning them into potential buyers. The impact of sexual appeal in ads can be established using the studies done on drivers on the road (Maliszewski et al. np). The participants of the survey were Polish drivers, 404 females, and 659 males with ages ranging from 18 to 77. The participants were required to fill the Attentional Network Test to examine the ability of their system to manage their attention. A 10-minute version of the Attentional Network Test consisting of 64 trials was developed with the fixation cue being the advertisement. The studies revealed that. The reaction times were longer in the case of sexual ads compared to the nonsexual advertisements. The reaction times also increased with the degree of the sexual content while diminishes as the sexual content weakened (Maliszewski et al. np). The cognitive test also revealed that there was no significant gender and age difference in the reaction to the sexual content. Both males and females, old and young, were distracted by the advertisements in different magnitude. The study reveals that sexual content has a significant impact on the level of attention of the viewers. Human beings are attracted more to arousing pictures or advertisements compared to nonsexual ads.

The Functioning of the Brain

The human brain has three sub-processes, encoding of data that entails capturing attention, storage, which involves organizing new information with already existing knowledge and retrieval, which brings previously encoded and stored data to mind. All marketers aim at not only capturing their viewers' attention but also ensuring they recall brand information viewed in the advertisements. The effectiveness of an advertisement lies upon recall of the advertised brand. Human beings have a limited capacity to process information. The Appetitive Motivational System (ASA), responsible for life sustenance through approaching useful things such as food available in safe environments, must be activated to enable the information sub-processes to respond to an advertisement (Samson 2). Sexual cues arouse positively human emotions, activating the appetitive motivational system. The sexual signals used in advertisements for nonsexual products such as food and automobiles, displaying couples or socialites in partial nudity, are responsible for ASA activation.

Once the ASA is activated, an individual will automatically be attracted to an ad and form subsequent memory. Sexually provocative images, defined in terms of sexual behavior, sexual embeds, innuendo, or mode of dressing, are believed to increase brand recall of sexually related products only (Samson 2). However, sexuality effectively attracts the consumers' attention for a more extended period, and once the advertisement gets their eyes fixed on the screen or magazine page, they will remember the message in the future. Sexually appealing ads help solve the problem in nonsexual ads that rarely get a potential buyer not only to look but remember the advertisement. Although findings on brand recall are mixed, ad recall created by sexual stimuli is vital as it has positive effects on the memory of the brand, whether sexual or nonsexual.

Further, the attitude consumers have towards a brand determines their purchasing intentions. The sexually appealing ads that induce arousal increases the likelihood of the consumers purchasing the product compared to nonsexual ads (Wilson & Noreen np). Arousal is a physiological state that builds tension within the human body resulting in the creation of attention and shapes the decision-making process of consumers. The arousal created by sexually-oriented stimuli in sexual ads coupled with the individual motivational sta...