I have a theory: Porn stars are CEOs of most advertising agencies. How else would sex sell so much?
After working a few weeks inside the world's leading seller in clothes, Aberfitch and Crombie, it dawned on me the average American knows about sex by the age of four. I've grown up with the television generation and I, too, have a computer chip inside my head that allows me to be brainwashed by commercials, but what's all this with sex?
"This is sexual harassment and I don't have to take it!"
It all begins the minute we wake up. We trudge to the shower, undress and then turn on the hot water. We pull out the shampoo and, instantly, there are three guys in the shower with us washing our hair.
"I've got the uuurrrrrgge..."
Of course watching three over-grown men wash a dainty woman's head isn't so tragic - until the woman starts wailing. And just like an erotic sex story, the commercials find the women moaning in strange, public places like court trials and, my favorite, the elevator.
Soon, they'll create a commercial for the body wash and it will be rated NC-17. Yuck. I object.
So, we begin our day with a product that is sold via sex. Next, we need to put on Abercrombie clothes. But why even bother?
The models in the Abercrombie catalog don't even wear the clothes - and so it turns into a drool-fest with most young women, and they just post the pictures of half-naked men all over their dorm walls in order to complete their sex shrine. I think I might see Abercrombie's marketing strategy: don't show the clothes in the catalog and then people will actually have to walk into the store to shop. It's ingenius.
Now that we're fully dressed with our pants down around our ankles and the thick wool sweater hanging around our neck, it's time to eat something. Our stomachs growl because trying to be sexy is simply too much work.
The only thing in the refrigerator is a microwave dinner.
Did we hit a brick wall? I don't think sex can save a plain microwave dinner. Then again, wasn't it Uncle Ben's Rice Bowl commercials that featured a couple clad in skimpy clothes on top of the kitchen counter cooking their, um, dinner?
To accompany the kinky rice commercial, it's a shame they don't have naked people standing in front of the camera complaining about their indigestion while they belch and fart. I'm sure sex could really sell Tums. The turnover rate would be through the roof.
And people wonder why we have so many teen pregnancies in the United States. Teenagers see a commercial for Herbal Essences or look through the Abercrombie catalog while eating a microwavable rice dinner, and within minutes, they're in heat.
But I don't see the trend slowing down anytime soon, especially with the advent of the Trojan Man. Fine, you win Porn stars; your provocative selling campaigns can remain. Although, here are some other products that could use a little boost with some sex in their ads: Depends, denture cream, sanitary napkins, deodorant, toilet paper, Vick's VapoRub, Odor Eaters, roach traps, Beano, and Immodium AD.
Write to Evan at emann@mr-potatohead.com
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