If you’ve been looking for a sure fire marketing secret weapon – look no further than the nearest strip club because it’s official: Sex Sells. That’s right, if you want to creating a sure fire successful marketing campaign and your target audience is males between the ages of 12 and 92, just be sure to include the two secret ingredients: boobs and babes.
If you needed proof of this, the blog Truemors reports that Sports Illustrated has proven the absolute power of this time honored marketing secret weapon in Boobs More Profitable Than (Foot)Balls.
A Sports Illustrated bigwig revealed on Bloomberg TV that the mag’s famous swimsuit edition accounts for 11 percent of SI’s annual revenue.
That means that single issue is 5X more profitable than other issues, which feature men of various shapes and sizes chasing after balls of various shapes and sizes. According to CNN Money, the SI Swimsuit issue began as simply a cover photo and 8 pictures in a January issue way back in 1964. Mark Ford is the president and publisher of Sports Illustrated:
Ford told the Times that although 4.8 million swimsuit copies will be sold, more than any Sports Illustrated issue, up to 60 million people will actually see the magazines. If true, that makes it the most widely read magazine edition in the world.
The swimsuit models will now be offered ditigally as well. For only $1.99 you can download a special video of the swim suit vixens strutting their stuff.
According to CNN Money
Advertisers in the swimsuit issue paid $35 million in 2005, or roughly a quarter of what was paid for Super Bowl advertising that year. An estimated one U.S. adult in five will read, or at least look at, the issue.
However, not only is the swimsuit issue a hit with men, but obviously women as well. Swimsuit manufacturers report having their garments draped upon those beautiful bodies is also a boon to the bottom line as well.
Domain name registrar GoDaddy has been embracing this “marketing secret weapon” ever since they began buying ads on the SuperBowl. They moved from featuring boobs and babes to promote their services to featuring naked babes in various stages of undress.
However, before you run out and hire a skank to promote your product, you’d better know who your target audience is. See, one of the reasons the SI Swimsuit issue is so popular is that men can subscribe to the sports magazine and once a year, they get “smut” thrust at them whether they want it or not. GoDaddy features their racy ads ONLINE so men don’t have to hide their issue under the mattress.
Sex may sell – but smut doesn’t do nearly as well. So be careful – you have to walk a fine line between titallating and smut.
Lol, that is a fine line indeed. But honestly, one man’s smut is another man’s artistic expression