The prevalence of sexual imagery in ads targeted to young adults.

To determine if advertisers use sexual imagery to appeal to youth, 2863 ads in magazines read by the agency of young and mature adults were compared. be the effects indicate that ads targeted to young adults were 65% more likely to contain provocatively aligned models and 128% more likely to contain sexual behavior than those for mature adults. In the ads for young adults, female protoplasts were 3.7 times more likely to be portrayed sexually than were male archetypes The findings suggest that advertisers use sexual imagery, primarily by means of means of female models, to appeal to young audiences. Education and consumer action implications are discussed.