Advertising sexuality

There is nothing new under the sun. Sex sells. You've heard the comments, but after logging into Facebook this morning and seeing a very odd marketplace advertisement I just had to say something.

Taking a quick glance at the ad as I scrolled by, I assumed it was yet another dating services ad about supposedly lonely women supposedly wanting my company by charging me $20/minute for a supposedly private phone call. Unfortunately for those of you now reading this, I actually read the ad, and noticed it was for "Data Entry Workers."

Data Entry Workers for a lingerie company? Data Entry Workers who look good in lingerie? Not that many employers haven't considered this before, but putting it in an ad? Doubtful. Perhaps and most likely, its for Data Entry Workers who like looking at slim women in lingerie. After all, the girl in the bra is designed to catch your attention and make you more likely to click their link. That's assuming the resulting link actually goes to a job in Data Entry at all. I didn't click the link to find out, sorry.

The question I have isn't why the model is used -- that seems mostly obvious -- but at what point this becomes silly or pointless. Beer ads have been doing it for years, as have car companies (although to a lesser degree lately), some restaurants focus on sexuality for attracting patrons, as do many sporting events, but general job advertising? At some point every ad we see will have a semi-nude person on it for no reason at all but to titillate the public. It seems to be working for Virgin mobile after all.