The Prevalence of Sexual Imagery in Ads Targeted to Young Adults‪.‬

To determine if advertisers use sexual imagery to appeal to youth, 2,863 ads in magazines read by young and mature adults were compared. Results indicate that ads targeted to young adults were 65% more likely to contain provocatively dressed models and 128% more likely to contain sexual behavior than those for mature adults. In the ads for young adults, female models were 3.7 times more likely to be portrayed sexually than were male models. The findings suggest that advertisers use sexual imagery, primarily by means of female models, to appeal to young audiences. Education and consumer action implications are discussed. In the area of advertising and consumer protection, much has been written about what Boddewyn (1991) referred to as "hard" issues--deception and the veracity of ad claims. Less attention has been devoted to "soft" issues (i.e., sexual content, decency, and objectification) because, as Boddewyn asserted, these issues "are more difficult to define and handle because they reflect a large variety of personally subjective, culturally related and historically changing values and attitudes" (Boddewyn 1991, p. 25).