Does sex sell?

Or does sex in advertising have the opposite effect, distracting the consumer from the product?

As reported in NewScientist (8/20/05, p. 6), a new study from Vanderbilt University suggests the latter.

The study found that erotic images stop us from registering and remembering things we see immediately afterward ? for up to 800 milliseconds.

That means when a viewer sees a bikini model in a TV commercial splashing in the surf, he is too distracted to remember the brand of the beer she pulls out of the cooler and holds up to the camera a second later.

What?s your experience? Does sex in advertising really SELL? Or does it just get attention, without making the cash register ring and generating a positive ROI?

Today I received an e-mail from American Business Media inviting me to submit (for a $135 fee) an ad I had written for an awards competition.

The prize? A ?Creative Excellence in Business Advertising? (CEBA) award.

A panel of eight judges ? seven ad agency types and one ?creative consultant? (note: not an advertiser among them) ? would pick a winner based on ? you guessed it ? which ad they thought was most ?creative.?

I have news for you CEBA committee members?.

We direct marketers submit our ads ? and mailings, and online marketing campaigns ? in a contest every day.

It?s called ?commerce.? The judges are the consumers who buy (or don?t buy) our products based on our ads. And the prize they award is their hard-earned cash.

So, CEBA, you can keep your plaque, or trophy, or whatever. Or give it to the branding guys who enter your hokey competition.

We direct marketers will settle for making the cash register ring ? a much better sound than the applause of ad agency ?creatives? ? don?t you agree?