Sexual ad appeals in social media: effects and influences of cultural difference and sexual self-schema

A multi-method approach was employed to investigate the effects and prevalence of sexual appeals in social media. First, a content analysis examined the presence of graphic sexual appeals in posts for the most followed fashion brands on Instagram, and the extent to which the number of likes and comments on these posts were related to the graphic nature of the appeal. Second, a set of experiments utilizing national consumer panels examined how consumer evaluations of graphic sexual ads on social media differ from those of non-sexual ads, and to what extent the evaluations are influenced by sexual self-schema (SSS) and respondent country (US vs Korea). The results indicate that the use of sexual appeal is primarily limited to sexually positioned brands, but graphic sexual appeals can increase the number of likes and comments on their branded SNS contents. Moreover, while consumers are somewhat reluctant to click “like” and “share” the sexual SNS contents, their intentions to like and share can be positively enhanced by their SSS level and cultural orientation of individualism.