IM-PACT!!

As a student of MBA, i have become more vigilant to the environment of marketing and finance around me. And not to my much surprise i discovered that the basic human instincts and basic human needs sit at the bottom of the pyramid of all the activities that a person does (even marketing).

Borrowing the concept of Abraham Maslow who

pioneered the concept of the Hierarchy of needs of every human being, he said that Physiological needs sit at the bottom of this pyramid which include food, shelter, cloth, and sex! above these needs are the safety needs, then the psychological needs, then esteem needs and finally self actualization needs..

Though probably he forgot to tell that all these needs can also mutually co-exist, and in most cases they do, which is a fact.

Anyways talking about his concept is not the epicenter of my post, though its a sort of a base or rather just a pillar to my post. I intend to talk about something very interesting over here.

Why sex sells in advertisements of products even though the product is not at all connected to sex? we can easily understand sex in a lingerie add and due to getting used to many more ads we can even intuitively explain sex in other ads, but what is the need??

Even the ads of real estate, vaccum cleaner, hamburgers, foot

wear, coffee, ice-cream, mobile phones, milk, etc resort to some kind of sexuality in their ads.

This is an add of Volvo car.. Quite interesting man!!! It says we are just as excited(rather sexcited) as you are :-) The ad doesnt tell anything about the car, it merely shows an errected handbrake which does all the magic!! Personally this is my favorite ad too, and it makes me find more about this car. Also interestingly Volvo targets female consumers in a big way.. But what has car got to do with sex??

The above is the add of Lavazza coffee.. Highly explicit and to some people even vulgar!! But still, the sales are touching the skies in the respective country.. What has coffee gotto do with sex after all??

Its just a burger!!! Why is she eating it in such a seductive way?? why doesnt she sit in a chair comfortably and eat it with leisure?? And i am sure no one is looking at the burger.. Even though i am a big foodaholic i am not looking at the poor burger. ;-) My eyes are wanting to look at the curve which her back clubbed with her waist makes so beautifully.. (rather sexually)

This wants to convey the benifits of drinking milk.. Then why the girl is not showing drinking it?? again a sexual depiction of a product like milk which has no connection at all..

So sex all the time and everywhere!!! Yes sex has got a lot to do with all the things even products which a marketer wants to market.. But that certainly doesnt mean that sex over the board in ads will sell the product.. Just like a good humour has a quality of never being fully explicit. Rather its left at the minds of the people to make further meanings out of it which make them laugh and amused, similarly i think that good sexual depiction in ads should not be very explicit, and thats why i like the Volvo ad better than the milk ad, even though rationally the milk ad should be more appealing to eyes for nudity and other 'obvious' reasons.. The vlvo ad leaves the viewer slightly amused, as it has a tinge of humour to it also. And as a matter of fact i think that after food and shelter and the basic necessities of life, its the SEX and the HUMOUR which sells the most and which humans want the most. Basic emotional requirements!!!!

Marketers understand this... and so they show sex more often than the product charecteristics.. Sex leaves the consumers excited and the excitement leads him to find about the product or in some cases purchase it deirectly...

If Volvo was in India, i would have gone for it man ;-)