Fragrantly Beautiful

Women choose beauty over booty

Study suggests sex doesn't sell to females

Tom Spears
CanWest News Service
Saturday, September 09, 2006

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Ads for cosmetics and clothing bore women silly when they rely on bare skin and lust, says a new Florida study that found sex doesn't sell, but "wholesome" does.

Women want Katie Holmes, not Jennifer Lopez, says the study by three professors at the University of Florida -- and fully clothed, pleased.

"This whole idea that sex sells? The women (in the study) were bored by it," Prof. Robyn Goodman says, "and it's not really all that surprising. We're bombarded with sexy images selling us stuff all the time.

"Why wouldn't we be bored? I can open up any kind of magazine and look at particularly the high fashion ads and they all pretty much look the same. They're all sexual. They're in kind of odd poses. It's not really appealing. I may like the clothes, but the way the model looks is not necessarily what I want to be like."

Goodman studies beauty in advertising and its effect on consumers. She calls her own taste in clothing "classic kinds of cuts and styles," and admires the beauty and style of Audrey Hepburn.
In her study, they showed ads from Vogue, Allure and other women's magazines to 125 college-aged women. They were surprised to find that ads showing skin and lust just made the women yawn. They weren't offended, but they were bored.

The more the models smiled naturally and showed a minimum of skin, the more positive the women's reactions. "Katie Holmes was an example of wholesome beauty," she says. She's sweet, lovely -- and clothed.

"Most people would say: 'But there's the whole Tom Cruise thing!' We did the study before Tom Cruise."

Mandy Moore is another "wholesome" type; at the other end were Victoria's Secret lingerie models and Angelina Jolie (though the Florida team wasn't sure why she's that way: Is it her lips? Eyes? Expression? Daring clothes? More study material for later, they agreed.) So what's wrong with sex?

The young women reading these ads "feel uninterested, they feel listless," Goodman says. "This is just one study and it needs to be replicated," she said, "but it should make advertisers stand up and ask questions about something that they thought was true.

"You know what? Maybe sex doesn't always sell."

She notes that this is the message that slowly gets through to Mel Gibson's character, a boorish, sex-is-everything advertising executive, in the movie What Women Want. "I use that example in my classes all the time," she says. "Even though a sexy model matches up with your brand image, it may not be the best idea for your brand ... What we found is the way that the industry and the way that consumers are looking at beauty are totally different. We want to do the same study, but with a male audience, and see if maybe that's where it's coming from."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FREE articles about self-help, self improvement, wellness, holistic health, and fitness. To see our full line of e-Books visit: www.ebooks4selfhelp.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

posted by Cheryl Levesque @ 5:02 PM