Topic > Advertising: Implications and Negative Consequences…

Paragraph 1: In Yeshin's article, Pollay suggests that one reason advertising has profound consequences for consumers is its use of sex appeal. Take for example Lynx's marketing campaign in 2006 (The Lynx Effect). The ad depicts several thousand bikini-clad women running through a forest and swimming across an ocean to reach a beach where we a man in board shorts sprays himself heavily with lynx. Only when these women catch up with the man on the beach do we see an aerial shot of the entire beach scenery and several thousand women where we see a slogan dominating the frame that says "spray more, get more" (The Lynx Effect ). This advertisement was the first of many Lynx marketing strategies that support Pollay's claim. Lynx's advertising campaign also suggests the target market for its product: males between the ages of 18 and 25. Furthermore, Reichert notes that a woman's body is a “common metaphor for sex” (Reichert, 273). Reichert continues on this notion of sex and how young men are prone to “bodily desires” and are “inclined to pursue anything related to sex” (273). Suggesting this, Pollay's statement was proven correct in the example of the Lynx effect, as it commodifies women's bodies by manipulating and persuading the target consumer to purchase their product through sex.