People are less able to recall the brand
of products advertised during programmes with a lot of sexual
content, than if the advert is placed in similar programme that has
no sexual content.
This was the key
message that came from research carried out at the Department of
Psychology at University College London by Ellie Parker and Adrian
Furnham and published by Applied Cognitive Psychology.
The implication is
that advertisers do not spend their money well if they buy space
during programmes with high sexual content.
A second, less
surprising, finding was that men recalled the brand of products
whose adverts contained sexual images, than they did if the adverts
were sex-free. Women on the other hand were actively put off by
sexual content in adverts.
The studies involved
60 university students (30 men and 30 women) aged 18 to 31, mean age
21, who were divided into four groups. One group saw an overtly
sexual episode of “Sex and The City”, which had sexy adverts running
during the programme breaks. Another saw the same episode with
non-sexual adverts. The other two groups saw an episode of “Malcolm
in the Middle” which contained no sexual references, with either
sexual or non-sexual adverts.
“The fact that recall
of adverts was hindered by sexual content in the programmes suggests
that there is something particularly involving or disturbing about
sexual programmes. Interestingly this is something that is also
found in programmes with aggressive content,” says Furnham.
“Sex seems to have a
detrimental effect on females recall for an advertisement,” says
Parker. “Sex is only a useful advertising tool when selling to men.”
For more information
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