Do Sex and Violence Sell?
Interesting study about whether sex and violence actually do help sell products. Apparently combining either sex or violence with product placement makes your ad less effective. Despite what Madison Avenue thinks. Will this lead to significant changes in the way ads are done? Perhaps. Although we’ll see. Inertia is a hard thing to kill.
There’s an analysis of the paper at Cognitive Daily blog. It wasn’t really about the ads themselves, but how well people recalled brands that were advertised during programs with sexual or violent content.
Comment by Jared — May 30, 2006 @ 12:20 pm
Actually the link was to the Cog Sci blog.
Yes, I should have noted that the study was for surrounding shows. And the reason might just be that people are so interested in the show that they become less interested in product advertisements. But it does suggest that the assumptions of advertisers are perhaps naive or vastly oversimplified.
I do think that we’ll start to see more intersection of advertising and cognitive science studies. For good or ill.
The problem is that we’re almost certainly wired to notice violence and sex. The former for the obvious reason that it relates to our well being and perhaps ones place in the pecking order; the latter for the obvious mating issues. (The recent studies about apes wanting to watch naked female apes as well as naked high status apes is interesting here) The obvious problem to advertisers is that if these are heightened cognitive states the very fact they are heightened may well affect how perceptions work. Thus the very fact of focus means that ones brain is paying attention to the attractive females rather than the beer being pushed, for instance.
I think advertisers in the past have simply seen the fact these affect interest and flocked to them. But interest and retention are two very different things. And what advertisers care about is retention.
Comment by Clark Goble — May 30, 2006 @ 12:30 pm
Sorry, I guess I should have checked the link. I had assumed it was to a news story at CNN or something.
Comment by Jared — May 30, 2006 @ 2:35 pm
How are apes ever NOT naked?
Comment by Susan M — June 1, 2006 @ 5:21 pm
It was, I believe, close ups of “attractive” female’s naughty parts.
Comment by Clark Goble — June 1, 2006 @ 5:52 pm