Does Your Magazine Know When You Like to Have Sex?

Posted by | Filed under Advertising, Consumerism, Influence, Marketing, Media, Psychology | Apr 28, 2009 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments
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Sexy time.  It’s not always at the same habitual time like breakfast or teeth brushing time, right?  Or is it?

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Researchers at the University of Texas did a study in 2007 with 2,000 participants that revealed 237 reasons why people have sex.  (Really, they couldn’t stretch it to 250 to get a good round number?)  But, you won’t find much published information on when people have sex …unless you’re a marketer.

We all know that sex sells and subliminal advertising sells.  Therefore one would expect marketers and advertisers to be all over research on sex, and they are.  If you’d like to know when people have sex it’s very easy to find the answer.  Just open a magazine.

If you choose any magazine randomly and flip through the pages you will notice that most, if not all, of the ads for watches feature prominent watch faces set to 10:10.  Why?  Because statistically most people have sex at 10 pm.

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Some of us are morning sex people, and some of us prefer sex earlier or later than 10 pm, but the research in marketing circles says that most of us like our sexy time when we turn the lights out at 10 pm.

The question is, “Does it work?”  Well, I’ve never looked at an ad for a watch and become aroused or felt compelled to buy a watch much less look at the one on my wrist.  But maybe I’m the exception.  What happens to you when you see a big, handsome bold-faced watch set to 10:10?

I bet you didn’t know you could learn so much from a watch ad in a magazine.  When they pay that much attention to try make a watch sexy just imagine what goes into trying to sell you a pair of sexy shoes or a brand new car.

…and after you open a magazine and see this, the answer is “Yes, I am psychic and I’m reading your mind.” (It’s a side effect of studying psychology, influence and persuasion.)

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  • http://www.peacefulwmn9.com Karen Chaffee

    Hm, I am debating which topic I see most in magazines, sex sex sex…or how to lose weight.

  • http://www.ElegantInsights.com Andrew BE

    Interesting observation and statistics that I was unaware of. Watch ads have previously caught my attention for a couple of other carefully planned subtleties: 1) 10:10 creates pleasant symmetry, playing closely to the rule of thirds (one-third/two-thirds division of the face), and 2) 10 o’clock is a nice time, both in the morning and evening. That one may just hit me personally, but those are low-stress times for me. I wonder what other ingeniously crafted affects are carefully modeled into such relatively benign (as you noted) watch ads.

  • http://www.blindinfluence.com Brett Greene

    Karen, it would interesting to see graph depicting the contrast of ‘weight loss’ vs. ‘sex’ in magazine ads. That’s a great point. I’d like to see the ratio in advertising and then separately for articles.

    Andrew, very astute observations you mentioned. Thanks for sharing them. There are great books on subliminal advertising that cover more of these techniques. I’ll lay out more of them in future posts.

    Thank you both for taking a minute to comment and share.

  • http://socialmediarockstar.com Brett Borders

    Wow.. that 10:10 thing is really far out. I wanted to belive it was an urban legend or crackpot theory but then you showed ads to back it up. I also noticed that 10:10 looks like a nice, juicy “V”. Sexy time!

    That was a great clip of Borat – love his over-the-top hand gestures. That clip comes from the Borat TV shows… Have you ever seen “The Best of Borat” with the TV outtakes? Many of them are amazingly good – on par with the film.

  • http://getstirredup.com Rick

    Hi Brett. Well, the designer in me has a slightly different take on the “10:10″ time in watch ads — and it is simply that setting the hands of the watch to this time brings attention to the BRAND of watch as it literally “frames” the watch-logo/name. Plus it’s a “balanced” and pleasing arrangement also. That’s my 2¢. ;-)

    • http://www.blindinfluence.com Brett Greene

      Maybe we’re both right ;-)