First draft

What I am trying to achieve

In my report there are going to be a few questions that I would like to cover based around the question “ Does sex sell”. This is a very big topic to cover so I am going to back it down focusing on the advertising they use to sell magazines. Some of the question I am going to try to cover is, why do designers use sexual images to get their message across? Where did the search for a perfect world come from? I have based this question on the fact people use sex appeal to increase the effectiveness of an ad or commercial because it attracts the customer’s attention.

I am going to do different experiments comparing a women magazine to a men magazine.
• Cosmopolitan Vs Nuts
• How many articles about sex does cosmo have compare to nuts
• How many sexual images do they both use
• Why are sexual images of women more popular then men images

Chapters

• Advertisers tried to understand and explore the deep unconscious and subconscious factors that motivate people to buy products. Advertisers try to use word triggers and picture trigger to evoke desired responses. I am going to explore what Images makes people buy particular products.

“The business man’s hunt for sale boosters is leading him into a strange wilderness: the sub-conscious mind.” (Wall street Journal, page 1)

Designers use sexual images as one of their tactics to attract men and to twist their minds into purchasing a particular product. Companies are implementing the same tactics in the advertisements that target women by sending out the message of "Buy (this product) and he will notice you".

• WHS Smith a family company starts Playboy stationary and Aero chocolate start using model best known for their sex scene are they using sex to enticed people, so has the media won. Great advertisers consider not only the attention-getting power of an advertisement or commercial, but also what kind of emotional response it provokes in customers. I want to look back in history on when sexual images become an everyday and look at a time when it was not ok to look at sexual images.

Studies show that the attractiveness of the endorsing model provokes positive responses. Nudity and graphic erotic content, while still increasing consumer’s attention, doesn’t really generate positive feelings among viewers but that was not the case 40’s year ago. The media has changed so much over the years, in the late 60’s women in magazine weren’t used as sexual objects but instead their lifestyle of motherhood and the care of the home and husband were splashed over the magazine covers.
• I want the opinions of women who work in that industry on the way women are portrayed in the magazine world.
• When did women magazine moved away for looking a women as mother images to sexual desires?

Betty Friedan an American writer, activist and feminist wrote for a magazine company call Mc Calls, which in the late thirties portrayed women as autonomous heroines seeking to fulfill their own goals but as the forties progressed, the self-sufficient heroine gave way to the glorified housewife, praised. The magazine was aimed to bring women "into the mainstream of American society now". Friedan work looks for the social definition of women’s role in the pages of women’s magazines, she saw the portrayals of women both editorial and advertising. Courtney and Lockerets were another two people who analyze how people looked at women, they believed that there are four general stereotypes of women being shown in the 70’s in print advertisement:

“ A women’s place is in the home; women do not make important decisions or do important things; women are dependent and need men’s protection; and men regard women primarily as sexual objects”

¬¬ Pingree, Hawkins, Butler and Paisley developed a scale for sexism and tested it against advertisements during the 1973-1974.

“ The most stereotypical level, level one, shows women as sex objects. Level two keeps women in their places by showing them in traditional activities. Level three shows professional women whose first place is in the home. Level four shows the sexes as fully equal and level five shows men and women in individual, nonstereotyed roles”.


• I want to look if using sexual images and talking about sexual issues a bad thing.
It’s human nature to be curious about sex. People in advertising say that all they do is hold a mirror up to society, reflecting who we are. So is it a surprise that most of the advert we see has a sexual nature about them. People portray porn as an ugly thing, so with that they show them in a ugly, cheap way with poor lighting and harsh settings but what if you take out of that setting and place in a beautiful setting with beautiful people ,what do you what do you get, I can tell you an ADVERTISING. Sex in advertising has stirred controversy for many years, an advertiser must be careful when incorporating it in a campaign. They concluded that majority of advertisements does not reflect reality and that the image of women in advertisements is significant in influencing women’s perception of themselves. Great advertisers consider not only the attention- getting power of an advertisement or commercial, but also what kind of emotional response it provokes in customers.

• Why do designer use sexual images of women and not men ?
• Who are the target audience for these ads?
Magazine’s choose carefully when picking images for magazine because for a man some images does not provoke the kind of anxiety that it may do in many women. The media is guilty of sexism in their coverage of celebrities. You will see more advert and cover of women then men.

• Talking about Cosmopolitan

Cosmopolitan that is a prime example of using sexual images and even talks about sexual issues to sell their magazine is the cosmopolitan. The cosmopolitan first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s. Also known as Cosmo, its current content includes articles on relationships and sex, health, careers, self-improvement, celebrities, as well as fashion and beauty. Paul Schlicht told his first-issue readers that his publication was a "first-class family magazine", adding, "There will be a department devoted exclusively to the interests of women, with articles on fashions, on household decoration, on cooking, and the care and management of children, etc., also a department for the younger members of the family." If you look at the cosmopolitan, all you see slashed across the pages is sex ,sex ,sex and even more sex. The cosmopolitan has turned it back on everyday family issues and started to focus on what the everyday reader wants, sex! Going through a cosmopolitan magazine their isn’t a real different between the issues they cover to the issues a men magazine called nuts covers. The magazine borrows some of its dirty glamour and sense of danger, while in return it confers legitimacy, making sex a topic of interest and discussion like any other day activity.

• Talking about Nuts magazine

Action plan
Need to be done