Home> Archive> 2023> Volume 13 Number 1 ( Feb. 2023)
IJSSH 2023 Vol.13(1): 56-60
doi: 10.18178/ijssh.2023.V13.1119

Sexual Suggestiveness in Advertisements and Its Impact on Gendered Consumer’s Purchasing Power in China

Zhuowen Yang

Abstract—Sexual elements in the visual design and unique layout of advertisements have been with us for a long time. Commercials, pamphlets, and electronic posts with almost naked models and pretty women are everywhere in TV programs and websites. The primary goal is to stimulate the viewer’s curiosity and gratification of vicarious pleasure, while prompting the potential customer to look at the products along the side. The designer wants to deal with the human psyche and the action motivated by this visual layout to entice the prospective buyers. A pretty, skimpily clad woman with an attractive figure, charming lips and mesmerizing stare is the matching configuration to seek business transaction and virtual profits. It deserves a careful examination of the interaction between the advertisement and business, especially the layout’s sexual and erotic appeal to the viewer’s emotional response. The statistical results of the survey conducted in 2020-21 and follow-up assessments have shown that most respondents answered either not quite enthusiastic or indifferent to the visual images of sensational exposing of the body and erotic attraction in the advertisements. My investigative research also indicates the correlation of gender and advertisement in terms of motivation and desire for purchasing the product. Emotional responses to the advertisements from the participant-interviewers will also be an important indicator of connection between image and business. It is interesting to add the issue of respondent’s gender to the questions in the survey. A tentative assessment of the survey and follow-up analysis concludes that the effectiveness of glamorous images in the advertisements promotes the sale of product and somewhat increases revenues, whereas the excessive display of human body bordering on vulgarity and sensationalism may thwart the customer’s purchasing desire and tarnish the image of the brand as well.

Index Terms—Advertisement, consumer psychology, sexual elements.


Zhuowen Yang is with the Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University United International College, China.

*Correspondence: 13711506599@163.com.

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Cite: Zhuowen Yang, "Sexual Suggestiveness in Advertisements and Its Impact on Gendered Consumer’s Purchasing Power in China," International Journal of Social Science and Humanity vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 56-60, 2023.


Copyright © 2023 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).




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