We all know sex sells, that is nothing new. It is often used to sell clothes, cars, accessories and sometimes video games. But using sex to sell food seem somewhat unusual especially fast food. Fast food restaurants have had some of the sexiest ads ever just to promote a new burger or sandwich. The Paris Hilton commercial has become a prime example. Although a thin model washing a car in a swimming suit may be great for advertising a new car wash business it is very irrelevant to a big mac. This is probably the last thing one would think of while hungry. Burger King found a way to relate sex to being hungry. After watching a few other provocative ads I noticed that they aren't subliminal at all they are very blunt an open with the relation to using sex to food. Advertising isn’t always directly about your product but what the product is associated with. Sex is a universal feel good so in relating sex to food the advertising company wants us to relate eating their foods with feeling good. Some messages that are put in advertisements or other things no longer have to be subliminal because sex is not really a taboo anymore its an open topic that is accepted to where some of the openly sexual advertisements we have today would not have been accepted in the 40's 50's or 60's.
Sexual ads didn’t gain popularity until the late 1970’s. they are now the most common way to sell a product. The use of sexual advertisements did not doubled but triple from 1964 to 1984. While the use of just verbal advertisements has decreased since this time. Using sex in advertisements used to be a taboo thing but it has very much so gained popularity over the past few decades. Advertising companies have found a way to incorporate sex into things that are completely non-sexual.
Burger King in particular has taken food an added a sexual twist on promoting themselves. One ad in particular that had Paris Hilton washing a car with her body more than soap an water, an towards the end she eats a burger. I had never made a link with washing a car with eating a burger. This is how companies target their audiences, in this case its men. The commercial contains an obviously expensive car an what is portrayed as an attractive female, two things that interest men. According to advertising companies base their target on the gender of the who will see the ad, whether the model in the ad is male or female and how controversial the ad is. These things impact how the ad is perceived an processed in the mind of the viewer. I am pretty sure that the thought going through the minds of females and males were extremely different. While males might have been thinking how sexy Paris Hilton looked, how sweet the car was and how good that burger would be. Females were more than likely thinking how Paris Hilton probably has never eaten a burger that big in her life, what washing a car had to do with Burger King and how women are often used as objects of lust to sell things. This ad was obviously directed toward the male population.
Besides the openness of sex in ads jingles are used as well as public figures. For example the BK ad where the girls were dancing in Spongebob Squarepants outfits with square butts, while the Creepy King sings the revised version of baby got back to sell a kids meal. Spongebob Squarepants is one of the most popular cartoons out and everyone young and old knows the “Baby Got Back” song, so to mix these two together targets a wide variety of people. So using Spongebob to sell a kids meal is inadvertently predisposing children to get
used to seeing sexual ads at a young age. Even though the ad is selling a kids meal an adult has to actually take their child there to get the kids meal, an of course while their there get themselves something also.
Just about every ad has some sort of sexual hint in it. BK has lately had some of the most blatant use of sex ever. The new seven inch ad advertising the new seven inch sub they have is so suggestive you do not even have to use your imagination to get the subliminal message behind the ad.
"Fill your desire for something long, juicy and flame-grilled with the NEW BK SUPER SEVEN INCHER," it says. "Yearn for more after you taste the mind-blowing burger that comes with a single beef patty, topped with American cheese, crispy onions and the A1 Thick and Hearty Steak Sauce." Is exactly what the new ad says.
So to wrap it up BK has taken sexual ads to a whole new level. There is nothing wrong about using sex to sell products, in fact it is very common now. But some companies have taken the imagination and wondering out of subliminal messages and put them out there for everyone to know no matter what age, gender, race. Many of the ads out today only require that you have eyes to understand the sexuality in the message. Here is one last example, enjoy.