SoBe's Ashley Greene dons skinsuit in 2010 Swimsuit Issue

In the upcoming 2010 edition of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, the movie star Ashley Greene (of the "Twilight" series fame) will appear nude, in a sense.

The young actress has stripped down to her birthday suit for a photo-shoot to feature prominently in the famous sports magazine, however it isn’t quite Playboy. No, Greene is sporting a bathing suit, a painted on bathing suit.

The photo shoot is actually an elaborate advertising campaign for drink manufacturer SoBe’s “Lifewater” drinks.

In fact, when I visited the SoBe website, the homepage has been redesigned so that the entire background is one of the pictures from Greene’s photo-shoot. On the website you can view numerous pictures of Greene sporting a various painted-on bathing suits. The style of the bathing suit is obviously supposed to resemble scales, a reference to SoBe’s lizard mascot. A video the photo shoot can also be found on online.

This blurring of advertising and content isn’t the first time that Sports Illustrated has featured a woman wearing nothing but paint. In fact, as recently as the 2009 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue, not one, but multiple women wearing nothing but the painted skin on their backs. So what makes Ashley Greene doing it so special? Well, a couple things.

First of all, Ashley Greene is best known for playing the character, Alice Cullen in the insanely popular, book-turned-movie franchise, "Twilight." I know very little about the "Twilight" series, and while I have never actually seen any of the movies (or read the books from that part) I am aware that her role is prominent. The headline “Twilight Star to appear nearly nude in Magazine.” Is bound to attract some attention due to the popularity of movie franchise.

Secondly, this is not the first time that, Greene has appeared naked on camera. In August of 2009 amateur nude photos surfaced on the internet. While legal action was taken by Greene and her attorney in order to remove the pictures, the images had already spread across the internet.

So here is a young, attractive actress who is a part of a massively popular movie-franchise who also has gained a bit of a status as a sex symbol due to an nude picture incident. It’s not an original tale, not by a long shot, but it is one that people seem to be fascinated with. And it’s a tale that SoBe is implementing to read the rewards of market share.

--Posted by Zachary Taylor

Sexiest commercials of 2009 according to Spike.com

Leave it to Spike, the network devoted to young adult males, to deliver on the sexiest spots of the past year. Spike.com lists the 10 sexiest ads of 2009. True to form, all of them are from a male perspective: lots of breasts, bikinis and girl-on-girl action. We see swimsuit supermodel Bar Refaeli in a revealing two piece, Pamela Anderson and another woman splashing each other with coffee creamer, and Calvin Klein jeans' couch menage-a-trios.

Surprisingly, the list includes three PSAs that gained international attention last year. One, for breast cancer, shows oglers going ga-ga over a Canadian broadcaster's jiggling breasts. A spot featuring a Hitler stand-in having sex, written about last year, to promote HIV-awareness. Rounding out the PSAs is PETA's "banned" Super Bowl ad encouraging veganism that put a new spin on vege-wrap. Let's keep an eye out for the sexiest ads of 2010. Thanks to Ray my TA for keeping me current.

OMFG -- Sexy "Gossip Girl" Promos

You may have seen one of the recent network promos for CW's "Gossip Girl." We did; me and my three-year-old son. The promos were hyping interest in "Gossip Girl" newest show since the writer's strike. It premiered Monday, April 21.

The promo aired about 3 pm on Oxygen network. It definitely caught our attention. As Brian Sternberg of Advertising Age noted, the promo "feature[s] Serena, Nate and other characters from the program locked in passionate embraces, with the text message "OMFG" superimposed on top." Couple those passionate embraces with nudity and a high degree of sexual tension to complete the picture.

Network Promos
Sternberg notes that CW is using sex to attract interest in the show. This is most certainly the case. Network promos are intended to hype awareness of programming and increase viewership. In a sense, sex in the promos is an implicit promise of "see more of this" if one tunes in.

CW and Sex
In a recent analysis, we found that CW contains more ads with sexual content (25% of all ads aired during prime time) compared to FOX, ABC, CBS, and NBC. More important, we also found that 38% of CW promos contained sexual content, which was much higher than all other networks. The next highest was NBC with 22% of promos containing sexual content.

Clearly CW, and its advertisers, use sex to appeal to the network's young audience. Sternberg noted that the audience for "Gossip Girl" was 18-34, but I would suspect that it skews much younger.

Bringing sexy back

Sensual backs and bellies in ads may surprise some students and youths in the Athens area. Posted in the bathrooms of local restaurants and bars, these ads aren’t selling products, but are generating awareness for pro-social causes.

Safe Campuses Now, an Athens-based, non-profit organization that advocates crime awareness, prevention, and education for high school and college students, is utilizing the fact that sex in advertising doesn’t have to be limited to brands and products. To generate awareness about rape and sexual abuse, the organization’s most recent poster shows a portion of a young woman’s bare back with a tattoo visible just above the top of her jeans. The copy reads: “Just because you think she looks like she wants it doesn’t mean she wants it from you.” It goes on to make the point that you must listen to her and behave accordingly if she says “No.”

Another version of the same message exists, this time with a women’s exposed stomach and hip. It’s my guess that these ads really hit home with viewers. The sexy images draw in the target audience and delivers an important message.

Along with rape and sexual abuse, Safe Campuses Now deals with issues such as DUI prevention, alcohol and drug abuse, pedestrian safety, exercise safety, and tailgate safety. The campaigns are developed by volunteers, with the help of partner firm Snowden Tatarski, an Athens-based ad agency.

The PSA by Safe Campuses Now exemplifies how sex in advertising can be used to effectively reach audiences with important social messages.

--posted by Michelle Weidner

Sexy Tom Ford fragrance ads

There is a lot of buzz surrounding the sexually provocative ads heralding Tom Ford's fragrance for men. More provocative is the website flash presentation of the fragrance bottle strategically placed around a women's breasts and groin (there's as much buzz about the model's shaved pubic region).

The approach is not surprising given Ford's history with designer brands. He was creative director for Gucci and YSL. During his very successful tenure at both brands, he reinvigorated them with cutting-edge sexually featuring nudity and pornographic themes that include female same-sex images (lesbian chic).

Given the sexually-laden promotions he's chosen to run in the past, Ford's current campaign does accurately represnt the brand's essence: If the fragrance carries his name, it's about sex.

A study several years ago found that about half of all fragrances were positioned with sex. True, fragrance can play a role in the attraction formula, but fragrance is unique in that it really has little meaning aside from the images it is associated with. In this case, Tom Ford is fairly certain that money will be made with his current campaign. He would know.

Cheeky advertising crossing the line?

Naked rear ends are showing up with increasing regularity in Times Square and Manahattan. Toto, a toilet marketer, is introducing its heated toilet seat/bidet hybrid, the "Washlet," to US audiences with a campaign featuring images of happy faces superimposed on butt cheeks. Quite popular globally, Americans have been slow to embrace "water cleansing."

A recent Adfreak post noted that a clergyman complained about the visual outdoor assault near his church and sunday school. The ads are attention getting but they are relevant to the product's function. You can see a demonstration of the new seat on the Washlet's website.