Should Marketers Eliminate Sex As An Advertising Strategy?

And now for a completely different point of view. Previously we wrote about a story in the Hendersonville News in which a woman named Susan Hanley Lane shares her feelings regarding a racy Skechers billboard she saw when she was with her father in law as he was getting haircut. Noting the odd juxtaposition of the two figures on the billboard having simulated sex advertising-style, with the presence of her father in law and two small girls playing outside near the board, Susan makes a convincingly cogent argument that, perhaps, we've taken this sex sells thing a bit too far. Wait, what? Did we just write that?

She notes the walled garden that used to be called childhood has collapsed and has been replaced, at least for girls, by girlhood. In other words, kids aren't kids anymore but have, because of the continual presence of adult imagery, become young hotties in training. And can you blame them what with marketers selling bras to pre-teens and hypersexualizing everything else?

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Walkers Pitch Man Tosses Lionel Richie Out the Window

So Lionel Richie. Remember him? The eighties pop star whose claim to fame was giving birth to Nicole Richie? Oh wait, he did have a few hit songs along the way so we guess he accomplished a thing or two. Anyway, he stars in a new AMV BBDO-created UK commercial for Walkers. Richie croons a hyper-annoying version of his Say You, Say Me eighties hit until he gets thrown out of the grocery store by Walkers pitchman Gary Lineker.

Hey, we could crap on Richie for appearing in such an ad but it's actually done quite well. After all, he does get thrown out the window at the end which is what any self-respecting person would do if accosted by an eighties pop star in the middle of a grocery run.

And seriously, can you really fault a guy for having a bit of fun and making some money along the way?

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