Title: Effectiveness of female nudity in e-advertising

Authors: Jacques Digout; Charbel Salloum; Leah Hajjar; Nahed Taha

Addresses: Toulouse Business School, 20 Boulevard Lascrosses, 31068 Toulouse, France ' Holy Spirit University of Kaskik, P.O. Box 446, Lebanon ' Holy Spirit University of Kaskik, P.O. Box 446, Lebanon ' AUL University, P.O. Box 14-6495 Beirut, Lebanon

Abstract: This paper attempts to study the effectiveness of female nudity in advertising, specifically among Lebanese youth in universities. To validate our hypotheses, we carried out a self-administered survey in four different universities, exposing 189 students to an experimental smartphone advertisement showing either a model's face or her partially nude body. Our results suggest that better attention toward the ad, brand recall, and favourable attitude toward the ad are dependent on the presence of nudity in the ad. The theoretical implication of our study is that the use of sexual appeal and sexual information is positively affecting the attention and attitude toward the ad, the brand recall, the consumer's buying decision, and consequently the sales rate.

Keywords: advertising; consumer behaviour; nudity; female.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEMR.2017.087715

International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing, 2017 Vol.8 No.4, pp.331 - 343

Received: 02 Oct 2016
Accepted: 04 Nov 2016
Published online: 31 Oct 2017 *

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