Summary
Title: The Erotic History of Adverstising
Author: Tom Reichert, Ph.D.
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1591020859
Pro:
• Might be appropriate for academic courses, but easily accessible to all readers
• Fascinating look at an important aspect of American cultural history
Con:
• None
Description:
• History of the use of sex in advertising in America over the course of 150 years
• Covers the use of sex with products from corsets to varnish to alcohol to condoms
• Numerous photos
Book Review
These are the topics of Tom Reichert’s book, The Erotic History of Advertising, published after a decade of research on how, when, where, and why sex has been used in a wide variety of visual media. Reichert, an advertising professor at the University of Alabama, provides a wealth of information not readily available anywhere else.
Although there have certainly been other books published on this topic, Reichert has gone further than them by given readers a coherent and systematic overview of the topic from the very earliest advertising efforts of the mid-19th century down through the massive marketing campaigns at the end of the 20th century. This allows readers to see how the use of sex has changed — and, more importantly in many ways, not changed — and how the use of sex has reflected changing American assumptions, aspirations, values, and goals.
Perhaps the most surprising revelation from this overview is just how much of a history there is to relate when it comes to sex in advertising. While many people seem to be under the impression that the explicit use of sex to sell products is a more recent practice, the fact of the matter is that it is very vintage indeed — many of the earliest advertising campaigns used sex extensively, and in ways that censors today might reject!
Tobacco products in the 19th century were sold via posters showing nearly (or entirely) topless women. These buxom women were often draped in toga-like robes and posed like Greek or Roman statues. A midwestern varnish company used completely nude models in the 1930s, but those ads appeared in a trade magazine that they assumed women would never see. Nude models selling varnish?
Another interesting aspect of Reichert’s research is the fact that “sex in advertising” isn’t simply about nudity. Ads which send the message that their products will make consumers more attractive and more appealing to the opposite sex also qualify — and quite a few marketing campaigns which don’t use nudity do use promises of romance, love, and sex to sell just about everything under the sun. This may be more subtle than a nude model, but the underlying themes are much the same.
- “The use of sex will ebb and flow, but it will never disappear. University of Maryland’s advertising instructor, Eric Zanot, said: “There is always going to be sex in advertising for the simple reason that it’s just one of our basic strong emotions. And advertisers are always looking for basic emotions to attach to products in order to sell them.””
Curiously, even though 73% of adults who responded to an Adweek magazine poll said there is too much sex in advertising, they also said that those sexy ads don’t actually affect them. Do you think that sex in advertising affects you? If you do, then Reichert’s book will help you understand why and how. If you don’t think they effect you, then Reichert’s book may help correct some misconceptions. Although this book would be appropriate as a text in classrooms, it is also written in such a way that the average reader can get quite a lot out of it.
