International Advertising and the Use of the Sex Appeal: Acceptance ...

Chapter 6CONCLUSIONA sex appeal is used in advertising for three main purposes: to arouse, togain attention, and to assist brand name recall.As shown in Figure 2, there aremany factors that should be considered when developing an ad with sex appeal.Within each factor there are aspects that should be considered.Such as, whenconsidering cultural influence, gender roles and perceptions of sexuality are vitalconsiderations.Perceptions can be very different depending on the culture.ModernAmerican culture reflects equality between men and women. Modern Chineseculture reflects a growing equality between men and women. Currently,Caucasian women are used in Chinese ads that use a sex appeal.As equalityincreases in China and sexual liberation comes to a peak, Asian models may beused in ads with a sex appeal.Since the sex appeal method is not alwaysaccepted, advertisers should look for other strategies to gain attention, andbrand name recall.Regardless of the method being used, pretesting is essentialfor international marketing campaigns.21