Consumers’ Response to Sexual Appeals in Advertisements: the Moderating Role of Sexual Sensation Seeking in Contexts of Std Prevention versus Perfume Promotion

This paper aims at investigating the influence of an individual trait, the Sexual Sensation Seeking trait (Kalichman et al, 1994), on consumer responses to sexual ads with varying levels of sexual content across two different contexts: the promotion of a perfume and the prevention of STD. for perfume ads, responses are more positive to sex content at higher levels of sexual sensation seeking. In contrast, for STD prevention, a romantic appeal is more effective at higher levels of sexual sensation seeking. The research rules out the confounding effects of gender, age and general sensation seeking tendency. Results are discussed.