A critical evaluation of sexual appeal in advertising and how it influences consumer buying behaviour. A comparative study between Muslim and Christian students

Akhtar, Hamna (2022) A critical evaluation of sexual appeal in advertising and how it influences consumer buying behaviour. A comparative study between Muslim and Christian students. Masters thesis, Dublin, National College of Ireland.

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Abstract

The use of ‘Sexual Appeal’ in advertising has become far and widespread in the span of the late - twentieth and early - twenty first Century, especially in the twenty first Century (Dahl and Sengupta, 2008). Sexual connotations are prevalent in consumer-centric advertisements in order to entice and appeal to the audience (Heckler et. al., 2001). However, due to the integration of religions and cultures in western countries becoming more diversified and the use of sexual appeal in advertisement being placard upon consumers consistently, not much statistical analysis has been done on how such displays of advertisements have an effect on the different socio-cultural and religious aspects of modern-day society.

It is not inconspicuous to say that aspects such as culture or religious morality has an inter-correlation affect into how consumers perceive and are influenced into the buying behaviour. In this research, outlined is the vast difference between how modern-day Christian students view sexual appeal and nudity in advertisements, based on Nelson and Peaks (2009) ‘The Nudity Scale’, in comparison to Muslim students living in a western country. The fundamental aspect of this research is that albeit both Christianity and Islam stem from a monotheistic religion, the difference in a subsequent person being raised in the 21st century, and how teachings and upbringings in relation to their religions significantly outweigh their perception of advertisements that incorporate sexual appeal, and how it conforms to their acceptability into buying the advertised products.

The investigation into the use of sexual appeal in advertising and its influence on consumer buying behaviours in relation to Muslim and Christian students, outlines that the resulting observations conducted via the qualitative research method, structured interviews, shows that Muslims do not outright deplore the use of sexual appeal in advertisements, whereas to the contrary Christians find sexual appeal can be quite useful in appealing to their senses and emotions. Thus, advertisers should take this analysis as an overlying factor and advance their cultural and religious comprehension to suit the criteria of addressing moral and social differences while conducting advertisements.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Supervisors:	Name Email Maguire, Louise UNSPECIFIED
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Sexual Appeal; Advertising; Nudity; Buying Behaviour; Consumer Perception; Religion; Christian; Christianity; Muslim; Islam
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BL Religion H Social Sciences > HF Commerce > Marketing > Advertising H Social Sciences > HF Commerce > Marketing > Consumer Behaviour H Social Sciences > HF Commerce > Marketing
Divisions:	School of Business > Master of Science in Marketing
Depositing User:	Tamara Malone
Date Deposited:	13 Apr 2023 11:52
Last Modified:	13 Apr 2023 11:52
URI:	https://norma.ncirl.ie/id/eprint/6437

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