ABSTRACT
The effectiveness of sexual appeal has been a hotly contested topic in both academics and in the mainstream media. The ubiquity of sexual appeals within advertising has been demonstrated by research probing both its general prevalence and the specific nature of sexual imagery in advertising. It is commonly assumed that sexual content could elicit greater overall attention to an ad that benefits message effectiveness. However, some scholars and practitioners argue that an ad is effective only when it increases attention to branding messages, and applying erotic models may take attention away from other important ad execution elements. Additionally, prior studies that examined various message-level or individual-level moderating factors on consumer responses to sex appeals did not yield conclusive findings. This chapter first provides an overview of past research that examined the effectiveness of erotic advertisements by comparing their study designs, dependent measures, and key findings. Next, based on the dynamic human-centric communication systems theory (DHCCST), this chapter discusses how the use of sexual imageries affects visual attention paid to surrounding ad elements in print advertisements from an information processing perspective.
