Tony L. Henthorne
IMPLICATIONS FOR ADVERTISING PRACTICE
There are several critical points that may be inferred from the knowledge accumulated to date.
1. Women with raised feminist consciousness have a propensity to
“take action” in response to sexual appeals that are perceived to be inappropriate.
So, let us lay our cards on the table. We are making a case for a chain of events that may result from the continued use of sexual appeals. Women with raised feminist consciousness are not only going to be made tense, but will also be inspired to take action in the form of boycotts against the of-fending products. Additionally, this negative feeling toward the ad and the offending products can extend to the company and its workplace. This ap-pears to go hand-in-hand with the class action lawsuit filed by female em-ployees of Strohs Brewery concerning the ads featuring the “Swedish Bikini Team” a few years ago. These memorable ads featured the familiar line, “Guys, it doesn’t get any better than this,” with the voiceover saying
“Oh yes it does,” as the platinum blondes of the “Swedish Bikini Team” ap-peared on the scene. Female employees at Strohs filed the lawsuit saying there was a connection between the ads and the way they were treated in the work environment.
This leads to the obvious question, “What should practitioners do about it?” The answer to this is, at least in part:
2. Advertising practitioners should aggressively seek consultation ex-pertise from feminists for the purpose of prescreening possibly “of-fensive” ads.
As we see it, an enormous problem underlying all of this is the fight by ad executives to break through media clutter by relying on the age-old be-lief that “sex sells.” It is an attempt to get the ad noticed at the expense of other considerations. As a result, the sexy ad that gets noticed may also be sexist. It is clear that there is a difference between what is considered “sexy”
and what is considered “sexist” in the present moral and cultural environ-ment. And such is clearly in the eyes of the beholder (see LaTour, Henthorne & Williams, 1998).
As we all know, business and high pressure are common bedfellows. It is no secret that business people often feel the temptation to compromise their ethical standards in order to succeed. We contend, however, that compro-mising one’s basic moral standards extracts a high price, in terms of both personal integrity and integrity in the marketplace. Recognizing this:
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3. The perceived ethicality of sexual appeals is of great consequence in the marketplace and, therefore, must be properly assessed.
Our research shows that both men and women have ethical problems with overt sexual appeals. The use of such stimuli evokes highly complex responses. We believe that often this issue is oversimplified or ignored.
Given the dynamics of the social fabric surrounding sexual appeals in print advertising, it is no wonder that the psychophysiological underpinnings of people’s responses show significant variability. Therefore:
4. Dimensions of arousal response to sexual ad stimuli (tension and en-ergy) should be assessed as a starting point to “diagnose” potential ad response problems.
Our research indicates that women are made significantly more tense than men by overt sexual stimuli. Arousal forms the baseline for feelings as well as subsequent cognition. The resulting manifestation of indignity to-ward the dehumanizing objectification of women is also a part of this com-plicated package for advertisers to take into account. Much research remains to be done. The question arises, “Who should do it?”
5. Advertising practitioners need to partner with academic researchers in an effort to facilitate applied research based on the richness of basic research into sexual appeals.
Our recent article on the subject of academic/practitioner partnering (Nataraajan, Henthorne, & LaTour, 1998) makes a strong case for an en-hanced “synergistic” partnership between academe and marketing practi-tioners on critical subjects such as this one. Both parties have much to gain from such a collaborative relationship. Unfortunately, the opportunity for such a relationship is often overlooked.
In summary, our current and future research endeavors seek to explore specific reactions to various manipulations of sexual appeals. In addition to assessing various attitudinal and ethical issues, we will also examine arousal response and a variety of “feminist consciousness” dimensions as covariates.
Specifically, both the Arnott Female Autonomy inventory as well as dimen-sions of the Liberal Feminist Attitude and Ideology Scale (LFAIS) will be in-corporated (cf. Levonian-Morgan, 1996). As emphasized earlier, it makes sense to meld these aforementioned research streams in this way. In so doing we hope empirically to elucidate the linkages between psychophysiological response, feminist consciousness, and perceived ethicality of sex in advertis-ing. We are, in essence, still seeking answers to the basic fundamental ques-tions at issue: “Does sex sell, and if so, how much sex is too much?”
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