We're all trying to figure out the mother lode of online advertising. And they key concept to that, like my advertising professor used to say is: grabbing eyeballs. And how do you do that? Sell through sex.
Being edgy and creative are different concepts, yet they mean the same in marketing parlance. Viewers have been anaesthetized to such an extent that the marketing people should not be worried about stereotyping or offending people. There is so much sex and nudity in advertising that the combination is mind numbing. So what the marketing guys should be more worried about is on being ignored because of the viewer being desensitised to the image.
Essentially, what is offensive to my parents’ generation need not necessarily offend me. The radical and in-your-face concept moves from the extremes towards the centre. And what is now the extreme will be the ‘centre’ in a few more years. What I am trying to say is that edginess is a dynamic concept that marketing theories hold on to for dear life. And if at any point the ad is not edgy enough, they OD on it.
Advertising agencies and their clients would not spend millions of dollars in making ads if they didn’t think they would give them the publicity they need to sell their products. Why would they invest in a lost cause?
However evil I think the advertising world is, and much as I hate to admit it, sex sells. And like SeongBae said, movies and advertising are getting more violent and obscene. Products are pitched with such explicit sexual imagery and innuendo to the extent that some even border on pornography. But then again, sex sells and we’re all buying.
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