Sexual Appeals in Television Advertising a Content Analysis of Commercials Aimed at Teenagers on Dstv Station of Your Choice
CHAPTER ONE
Objective of the study
The objectives of the study are;
- To find out how teenagers define sexual appeal in advertising
- To ascertain the relationship between sexual appeals in MTV base and commercial aimed at teenagers
- To ascertain the effect of sexual appeals in MTV base advertising on teenagers
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Advertising and Reality
Advertising can be defined as a form of communication that is used to persuade or encourage the viewer to purchase the product or service being offered (Hilmi and Ngo, 2011; Levitt, 1993). People consume billions worth of advertising and only a small portion of that they would actually want (Gustafson, 2001). It is all used to try and get people to do something they might not ordinarily do, or try to get them to do it differently (Levitt, 1970). Advertising gets on peoples nerves and it intrudes on their lives but they understand and put up with it as it is the price they pay for choice and free access (Gustafson, 2001; Levitt, 1993). Advertising informs, entertains and excites and helps to break up TV shows and pages of plain text. People know that adverts aren’t depictions of the real thing, and they don’t want to know how it is made, just what it promises emotionally or suggests symbolically (Levitt, 1993). People are motivated by things that are beyond reasonable, wishful possibilities that transcend reality. Advertising is representational, not the real thing. Seeing a celebrity in an advertisement will do more to a woman than a doctor telling her about dieting (Levitt, 1993). Rather than deny that distortion and exaggeration exist in advertising, Levitt (1970) argues that embellishment and distortion are among advertising’s legitimate and socially desirable purposes. He compares it to poetry, as it tries to persuade and seduce. Like fashion designers, playwrights and poets, advertisers deal in symbolic communication (Levitt, 1970). However, Gustafson (2001) believes that Levitt focuses too much on advertising giving us dreams, and that he neglects the literal information advertising should give the viewer about products. Gustafson (2001) feels advertising should give facts about real products and that the importance of truth in advertising is overlooked by Levitt.
Sexual Appeals in Advertising
Sex has been used since the very beginning of advertising as an appeal to try increase consumer interest (Dahl and Sengupta, 2008). Even as far back as 1910 a romantic advertising campaign increased sales of Woodbury’s Facial Soap and successfully saved them from going out of business. Sexual appeals are often used to gain standout amongst other advertisements or to make the adverts message more appealing to the audience (Manceau and Tissier-Desbordes, 2006). Alexander and Judd (1978) say that the goal of using sexual appeals is to get the customers attention, gain product/brand recognition, recall and eventually increase sales. There is normally an agreement that a nude or partially nude female has the ability to gain attention (Reichert 2002; Dahl, Frankenberger and Manchandra, 2003; Torlak, 2011) but doubts do exist about whether it can achieve the other objectives (Alexander and Judd, 1978).
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought to Sexual appeals in television Advertising a content analysis of commercials aimed at teenagers on DStv station of your choice.
Sources of data collection
Data were collected from two main sources namely:
(i)Primary source and
(ii)Secondary source
Primary source:
These are materials of statistical investigation which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment; the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary source:
These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
Population of the study
Population of a study is a group of persons or aggregate items, things the researcher is interested in getting information on Sexual appeals in television Advertising a content analysis of commercials aimed at teenagers on DStv station of your choice. 200 staff of selected residents in PH was selected randomly by the researcher as the population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
DATA ANALYSIS
The data collected from the respondents were analyzed in tabular form with simple percentage for easy understanding.
A total of 133(one hundred and thirty three) questionnaires were distributed and 133 questionnaires were returned.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was on Sexual appeals in television Advertising a content analysis of commercials aimed at teenagers on DStv station of your choice. In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges of Sexual appeals in television Advertising a content analysis of commercials aimed at teenagers
Summary
This study was on Sexual appeals in television Advertising a content analysis of commercials aimed at teenagers on DStv station of your choice. Three objectives were raised which included: To find out how teenagers define sexual appeal in advertising, to ascertain the relationship between sexual appeals in MTV base and commercial aimed at teenagers and to ascertain the effect of sexual appeals in MTV base advertising on teenagers. In line with these objectives, two research hypotheses were formulated and two null hypotheses were posited. The total population for the study is 200 residents in PH, Rivers State. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 133 respondents made married men, married women, students and youths were used for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and frequencies
Conclusion
The participants in this study did not feel that an advertisement using a sexual appeal would encourage them to purchase the product being advertised, which agrees with findings by Ford et al. (1991). They were more interested in the clothes that were being advertised and how the model was styled. The participants believed that these advertisements were more likely to be liked by men and they did not understand why they would be used to get women to purchase the product. These findings disagree with those by Reichert (2002), Dahlberg and Zimmerman (2008) and Dahl and Sengupta (2008), who found that purchase intention was high with adverts that used a sexual appeal and that the participants would still purchase the product even if the advert offended them.
Recommendation
The use of advertisements as visual aids in the interviews was useful not only because some participants could not think of ads themselves, but also because it allowed the researcher to see how different participants viewed the same advert. The author would recommend using this tool to anyone who was undertaking similar research. The author would also recommend the snowball sampling framework to anyone doing research on a sensitive topic. As the participants were friends or recruited by friends, it helped to build trust and make them comfortable discussing sensitive issues.
References
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