New approach to soap and hygiene

Last class we discussed the approach companies used when trying to promote soap. This got me thinking about the ways advertisers currently try to pitch hygiene to customers. Now I feel like advertisers have resorted to sexuality or sexual references when promoting their products. One example of this is the Herbal Essences shampoo and their commercials. Most of you, probably have seen at least one of the commercials and its clear that there is a sexual reference attached to their pitch. What is interesting about this is the fact that the product has changed a lot (with new bottles, new fragrances, etc.) but the advertising campaign has remained the same. Another examples, although in a lighter scale, are the Gillete Venus commercials, which use words as fire and desire in their jingle to appeal to the sexuality you achieve when using their products. Lastly, all the commercials about fragrances (especially those created by famous celebrities or renown designers) use sexual appeal as the way to approach their customers.
What I find interesting about this is the fact that compared to Europe, America has always had a fascination with advertising hygiene and cleansing and when talking about sexuality in advertising European ads are clearly more explicit and have less taboos. Its interesting to see how now America is also trying to have a more sexual approach to advertising, not only in hygienic product (think back to the ads we saw in class for Tom Ford). A shift in the way hygiene and cleanliness is pitched to the customers may be either a way to break taboos, just another attempt at being similar or better than European culture, or a sign that our culture is becoming more sexual as each day passes.

It is interesting how now there has been a shift