All language subtitles for Original.Sin.Sex.S01E06.Sex.in.Advertising.720p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-SPiRiT

♪

NARRATOR: Two words that
you can take to the bank.

RuPAUL CHARLES: Sex sells.

RUTH WESTHEIMER:
I do know that sex sells.

SANDRO MONETTI: Sex sells,

and if you're looking
to sell a product,

there's no better way to do it
than with sex.

JUSTIN BIEBER: You're turned on
right now? Yeah.

PRODUCER: You are?
BIEBER: Yeah, I'm turned on.

ANNOUNCER: Obsession.

ANDY COHEN:
What can sex not sell?

Uh...

JOSH WELTMAN: It wasn't
rocket science.

Get the hottest girl
to talk about a hot burger.

CHARLOTTE McKINNEY:
I love going all natural.

I am all natural, so that's what
made it funny, sexy, and witty.

NARRATOR: But how exactly
do advertisers use sex

to get our attention?

MARGARET CHO: If you wear
this body spray,

you'll have millions of girls in
bathing suits chasing after you.

[laughs]

NARRATOR: And if companies
add more sex to their ads,

does this guarantee
more profits?

KATIE COURIC: What are we gonna
be seeing 10 years from now,

people running around naked?

NARRATOR: Where is
the sweet spot

when it comes to
sex in advertising?

[screams]

MAN: Two times!

WOMAN: Two times!

CALVIN KLEIN: If parents got
upset by what they were seeing,

young people just
wanted more of it.

♪

NARRATOR: It's a kind of
sorcery, almost like alchemy,

where the high priests
of advertising

anoint everyday objects with
irresistible sex appeal.

CALVIN KLEIN: Sex won't do it.

It can't be just about sex.

It can't be just about
being vulgar.

There has to be a lot
more thought behind it.

It has to be thought provoking.

TOM REICHERT: Sex actually works
in several different ways.

First, grabbing attention,
and that's easy.

There is an explicit brand
promise, 'Use this, get this.'

♪ When something catches
Charlie's eye ♪

♪ That makes his
pulse rate climb ♪

♪ He uses a whistle, a wink,
and Wildroot ♪

♪ It gets her every time

REICHERT: You will be more
sexually attractive.

You'll get more sex,
or have better sex,

or you'll just feel sexier.

NARRATOR: Exhibit A, soup.

SANDRO MONETTI:
How do you advertise soup?

Soup is not a sexy product.

NARRATOR: Traditionally,
soup has been a clever dish

to stretch ingredients,
especially in desperate times,

like during
the Great Depression,

when there were soup lines
for those looking for a meal.

Today, instant soup also
serves a basic need.

Add boiling water to a dusting
of dried ingredients,

and it reconstitutes into
something resembling soup.

One British soup company
served up piping hot sex appeal.

ANNOUNCER: New Batchelors'
deliciously thick Cup a Soup,

made with carefully selected
quality ingredients.

MONETTI: How do you
make soup sexy?

You have somebody sexy
eating the soup.

So, Joey Essex, a big
reality star in Britain,

star of 'The Only Way
is Essex' reality TV show,

he's at home eating soup, but
he's shirtless while he does so.

NARRATOR: The spot shows
acres of abs

and cheeky self-awareness.

Then it spoons up
a mysterious morsel of innuendo.

ANNOUNCER: Incredibly tasty.

Phenomenally thick.

MONETTI: So what we tend to do

is we go with what we call
in Britain 'the cheeky.'

ANNOUNCER: Philips has created
a new dimension

in color television.

MONETTI: The naughty,
not full-out pornographic,

but suggestive.

NARRATOR: When advertisers want

to successfully
create sex appeal,

they often try to balance skin
with innuendo,

and they take a gamble,

estimating society's tolerance
for sexual imagery.

KLEIN: I think
it's more interesting

if you leave things to
people's imagination.

They can take it where
they choose to.

CHRISTOPHER RYAN: The man
who founded advertising,

Edward Bernays, was the nephew
of Sigmund Freud.

So the connection between
psychological research,

human sexuality, and advertising

dates back to the very birth
of the business.

NARRATOR: Freudian ideas
of the libido

and how it powers human behavior

have informed advertising
from the very beginning.

In early men's trade magazines

and industrial product
catalogues,

advertisers free-associated
their products

with images of nude women.

The ads worked, showing nudity

with a product
like wood varnish,

because only men were reading
these publications.

REICHERT: What they would do
is they would usually use

some double entendre.

So they would show a nude woman
and say,

'Look at how beautiful
this form is.'

We're able to do that with
your flooring with this varnish.

So basically, using the woman
as a metaphor

for how well our product works.

NARRATOR: Possibly the most
far-fetched link

between sex and a product
appeared back in 1887,

when a US advertiser tried
to sexualize a lump of coal.

REICHERT: There's a very
centerpiece of this ad.

You had a couple
in a romantic situation

being warmed by
a coal-fueled fire.

And if you've got coal
heating your home,

you might get more sex
or better sex.

NARRATOR: The smoldering
coal ad was a one-off.

But when companies started
peddling facial soap

with sexual messaging,

it changed the way almost
everything was advertised.

The year was 1911,

and the soap maker was an
American named John H. Woodbury.

REICHERT: The Woodbury soap
campaign is extremely notable

because it was the first example
of a sex appeal

used in mainstream advertising.

Woodbury's facial soap was
purchased by Jergens Company

right at the height.

It was a premium soap.

And no matter what they did,

all of a sudden,
sales started to go down.

NARRATOR: Dr. Woodbury's
products were first advertised

as a remedy for blackheads
and other facial blemishes,

but when sales trended downward,

the brand needed to lather up
their sales tactics.

JULIANN SIVULKA:
So Woodbury hired

the J. Walter Thompson Agency.

And one of the specialties
about the agency

is that they specialized in
selling to the women's market.

And they talked to women
for marketing research.

They went door to door to ask
women questions about products.

They went into
department stores.

They went into grocery stores
trying to understand

what they liked about
the product,

what they didn't like
about the product.

They wanted to tap into
those innermost thoughts,

innermost desires.

NARRATOR: The tireless research
revealed two main things.

First, that women many women
did not consider using soap

as part of their
skin care routine.

And second, that
they craved romance.

REICHERT: So they said,
hey, we got a great idea.

Why don't we show women
how to care for their skin,

and we'll show them the benefits
of nice-looking skin,

most notably having handsome men

finding these women
incredibly adorable.

SIVULKA: They presented
an advertisement

showing a beautiful woman

who was embraced
by an attractive man,

and it had the headline,
'A skin you love to touch.'

REICHERT: And in each
of these ads,

they would tell women how
to care for their skin.

Use this, get this, and
here's the result of doing that.

You'll have some handsome man
who's obviously wealthy.

He'll be so into you, because
you have great-looking skin.

SIVULKA: And that was a pretty
convincing argument

to many women.

As a result of the campaign,
the sales increased over 500%.

The Woodbury campaign proved
that sex could sell

a lot of soap.

REICHERT: And anytime
you have success,

especially in popular culture,
competitors are gonna copy them.

NARRATOR: Nearly as unsexy
as a lump of coal or a bar soap

were dungarees,
also known as blue jeans.

Levi Strauss invented jeans
in 1873

and sold them to working men who
valued the sturdy denim fabric.

Right on the label was and
still remains the Levi message,

'Riveted together,
not just sewn,

and a pair of horses
couldn't tear 'em apart.'

[horses neighing]

Early on, they were known
as the 'two horse' pants.

SAM SHAHID: When I was
growing up as a kid,

jeans was like, you know,
for the young kids,

and sometimes, it was
wrong side of the tracks.

REICHERT: Jeans,
at the very beginning,

had been targeted in terms
of their utilitarian value,

whether they were long-lasting,

whether they had rivets that
would keep the jeans together,

or their price.

So, those were the ways
that jeans were advertised.

[gunshot]

NARRATOR: When popular culture
partnered up

with the Hollywood Western,

the loners and rebels of the
American West were romanticized.

And some of that sex appeal
rubbed off

on the pants they were wearing.

ANNOUNCER: For the first time
in history,

Levi's Shrink-To-Fit 501 jeans,

a cut especially for women.

JACQUELINE LAMBIASE:
Jeans are kind of part of an era

that probably started
in the 1950s

in terms of the idea

of the rebel and jeans.

And so, jeans have had

a connection with sexuality

for a while.

NINA HARTLEY:
It's the quintessential

American article of clothing,

it's the quintessential uniform
of youth and of rebellion.

It used to be
a working man's outfit,

and then, you know, came
Marlon Brando and James Dean,

it's like,
'Whoa, jeans are sexy.'

JOSH WELTMAN: It was about
putting on an attitude

and an identity.

NARRATOR: In 1979,
the brand with the horse

stitched on the back pocket

made the leap from jeans
to sexy second skin.

Jordache also gifted
the fashion world

a new and very lucrative term,

'designer jeans.'

SHAHID: Jeans couldn't
get tight enough.

You practically were
poured into them,

or you had to put them on
and lie in a bathtub

to get them to fit.

REICHERT: With jeans
advertising,

especially in the late 1970s,
early 1980s,

you had a proliferation
of designer jeans.

Barbara Lippert from Adweek
called it 'cinema derriere'

because you had such a focus
on rear ends.

NARRATOR:
The rebranding of jeans

from coverall to reveal-all

was a new twist on
sex in advertising.

Designers not only sexualized
a humble product,

they elevated it into the realm
of high fashion.

LAMBIASE: The brand of jeans
mattered a lot.

The way they looked on you
mattered a lot,

and all of that was bound up
in teenage life

and the way you felt
about yourself,

and the way that you had
sex-esteem about yourself.

NARRATOR: Soon, designer jeans
would spark

a worldwide controversy
over sex in advertising

when a driven and debonair
entrepreneur

unleashed his vision of sexy
in New York's Times Square.

KLEIN: It was the early '80s.

We introduced the jeans
with Brooke Shields

on TV and in print.

LAMBIASE: People felt like
this was a very scandalous way

to sell a product.

ELLEN GOODMAN: Brooke Shields
in that ad is 15 years old.

If I could quote my daughter,
'gross' would be my reaction.

[whistling]

NARRATOR: 35 years ago,

a clothing designer
released a commercial

that still retains some
of its provocative power.

BROOKE SHIELDS: You want to know
what comes between

me and my Calvins?

Nothing.

REICHERT: It not only changed
the way commercials look,

but also the way
jeans were marketed.

GARY R. HICKS:
Probably the first time

that a lot of Americans heard
the name Calvin Klein

was with the Brooke Shields ads.

NARRATOR: But Calvin Klein's
instant notoriety

had been a long time coming.

KLEIN: Being a fashion designer
all my life,

knowing from the time
I was five years old,

this is exactly what
I wanted to do.

NARRATOR: Calvin Klein
first learned sewing

and patternmaking
from his grandmother,

who was a seamstress.

As for his later affinity
for sexual imagery...

KLEIN: I grew up in the 1950s

where we were repressed
sexually.

And as a child,
I always felt different,

I always felt I didn't belong.

NARRATOR: In 1968,
Klein opened his first shop

with boyhood friend,
Barry Schwartz,

in a hotel in New York's
garment district.

He got his first break

when a buyer from the
department store Bonwit Teller

got lost in the hotel,

accidentally walked
into Klein's shop,

and ordered $50,000 worth
of clothing samples,

a fortune at the time.

In 1979, Klein had another
brush with destiny

when he splayed
the model Patti Hansen

across a Times Square billboard
in a pair of his jeans.

KLEIN: I wanted to show
this incredible body

and this gorgeous woman

who had a mane of hair
like you've never seen.

And we put her
on her hands and knees,

because the billboard
was horizontal.

It never occurred to me
that women would interpret

that she was put in a position
of submission.

Well, that year I won
the Pig of the Year award.

NARRATOR: He'd stumbled onto
a secret of global recognition,

stirring controversy.

One year later,
he upped the ante

with the first
Brooke Shields commercial.

HARTLEY: In the ad,
she has long, silky hair,

and she was on one hip,

and she was buttoning
one button on her shirt

with the wind machine,

'What comes between me
and my Calvins? Nothing.'

SHIELDS: Nothing.

CINDY GALLOP: Calvin Klein
was making jeans sexy

in a really disruptive
and breakthrough way.

COURIC: Television commercials
and print ads

are steamier than ever.

LAMBIASE: There was
a lot of protest

against ads like this one
of Calvin Klein's.

People felt like this was
a very scandalous way

to sell a product.

WELTMAN: The world is still
uncomfortable with young girls

being comfortable with
their own sexual power,

so I imagine that's what
the controversy was about

at the time.

GOODMAN: Brooke Shields
in that ad is 15 years old.

If I could quote my daughter,
'gross' would be my reaction.

SHAHID: The media had
a field day over it.

KLEIN: As it turned out,
the Dow Jones had hit 1,000,

which was a very big deal.

Instead, on the front page
of the news,

this was a huge,
full-page picture

of Brooke Shields in the jeans,

and in the upper right-hand
corner was 'Dow Hits 1,000.'

COURIC: If we're seeing these
kind of commercials today,

what are we gonna be seeing
10 years from now,

people running around naked?

GARY BAUER:
I think as a society,

we've got a responsibility
to draw certain lines.

NARRATOR: The outrage
over the actress's age

and the way the camera lingered
on the skintight denim

would eventually fade.

But what gives this spot its
timeless edge is the tagline,

one that leaves so much
to the imagination.

SHIELDS: You want to know what
comes between me and my Calvins?

HARTLEY: Nothing.

SHIELDS: Nothing.

ANDREA SCOTT: That's a great
example of sexual innuendo.

What did she mean by that?

KLEIN: When it came
to the words,

here's where we took some risk.

SHIELDS: Reading is to the mind

what Calvins are to the body.

KLEIN: I think it's
more interesting

if you leave things
to people's imagination.

They can take it where
they choose to.

That's much more interesting
than the obvious,

whether it's words,
or it's film, or print.

NARRATOR: For the purpose
of selling jeans,

the commercials excelled
at their job.

SHAHID: The sales, as we
all know, were extraordinary.

HICKS: It was very, very
lucrative for Calvin Klein.

NARRATOR: Sales of Calvin Klein
Jeans nearly tripled

after the first
commercials aired.

A reported 200,000
jeans were sold

the first week
they went on the market.

KLEIN: We sold so many jeans,

and often because if parents got
upset by what they were seeing,

young people just
wanted more of it,

they couldn't get enough.

NARRATOR: While Calvin Klein
thrives on controversy,

other advertisers skirt scandal

by employing
sly sexual innuendo instead.

JEFFREY MORAN:
We're the king and queen

of the double entendre,

so we always want consumers

to get that little wink
and the nod.

We knew we had to be
completely different,

we were a different bottle,
we were a different product,

we were a different country.

So we had to really
introduce the US

to something that they had
never experienced before.

NARRATOR: First distilled
in Sweden in the 1870s,

Absolut Vodka was
repackaged in 1979

in a vintage style
apothecary bottle

with simple and timeless
flowing lines.

The advertising seized upon
the curves of the bottle

and ran with them.

MORAN: When you think
of a silhouette,

whether it's the female form

or even the male form
in the silhouette,

you immediately recognize it,
you see it.

We saw that when we looked
at this apothecary bottle.

And if you think back
to our first set of ads,

which was Absolut Perfection
and so on,

it was very simplistically
a bottle,

which in and of itself is very
sexy, very fluid, very simple.

But it's so simple and
so curvaceous and beautiful

that you just immediately
got it every time.

NARRATOR: As a launching pad
to the world,

the sensuous-looking bottle
was introduced

to a then-neglected US market.

MORAN: We were among
the first brands

to ever even advertise
to the LGBT community,

which had its own sort of drama
in the '80s;

no one was talking to them.

So all of a sudden,
you had this brand

with a relatively simple
and still very sexy ad

that had one simple message,
'Absolut Perfection.'

NARRATOR: By 1997, Absolut
finally clothed its naked bottle

in a purple corset.

MORAN: And it worked
beautifully,

the color, the style,
the simplicity.

We call it now a thumb-stopper
on Facebook or Instagram.

But it was a page-stopper,

and it was,
'I wonder what's inside.'

So it was almost
what we didn't say

that made that ad way sexier
than what we said.

When you really spent the time
looking at it,

and you thought through
all of those

double and triple entendres
of a corset,

and pulling something open,
and revealing this inside,

and what is inside,

it really got a lot of consumers
thinking, 'Wow, that's hot.'

NARRATOR: In more than 1,500 ads
spanning nearly three decades,

Absolut has draped
its curvy bottle

with suggestive images
and language.

It's propelled the brand
to its place

within the top five sellers
of premium spirits worldwide,

all with the teasing silhouette
of an old apothecary bottle.

MORAN: It's left to
your own imagination,

which as we know,
is the richest area to have.

NARRATOR: Sly double entendres
have also managed to sexualize

what might otherwise be

a dull government initiative
to conserve water.

ANNOUNCER: Conversation
can feel oh, so right.

Shut off the faucet while,
ooh, soaping those dirty hands.

NARRATOR: In 2014,
as a lengthy drought

gripped California's
San Francisco Bay Area,

these ads playfully suggested
that saving water together

was as good as steamy foreplay.

ANNOUNCER: Replace your toilet
and get paid for...

doing it.

Nice.

SCOTT: They would talk
about things like,

shower together, save water,

nozzle your hose,

make it a quickie,

short and steamy.

I thought that campaign
was brilliant.

The advertisers, they understood

the culture that is
San Francisco,

where sexuality is very out
in the open, it's understood,

and it really captured
the imagination

of the people of San Francisco.

ANNOUNCER: Efficient fixtures
for your kitchens and bathrooms,

screw them on.

Yeah.

NARRATOR:
After the campaign ran,

water consumption
dropped by 8%.

How many San Franciscans were
having sex while saving water

is unknown.

ANNOUNCER: Most gardens need
only to be satisfied

twice a week, oh, yeah.

NARRATOR: While advertisers have
proven that double entendres

can sell a lot of vodka
and save a lot of water,

it's also true that burger porn
can move a lot of meat.

AUDRINA PATRIDGE:
I call it my bikini burger.

NARRATOR: In the camp
of advertisers

who use shameless, over-the-top
sex to sell products,

there is one total standout.

JACLYN FRIEDMAN:
The Carl's Jr. commercials

are an extreme example
of the 'sex sells' strategy.

ANN COULTER: Paris Hilton
basically having sex with a car.

NARRATOR: But the road
from local burger outlet

to international notoriety

is a classic study
of sex in advertising

and its power to
transform a brand.

WELTMAN: Carl Karcher was
a conservative religious guy,

and Carl's was a,
kind of a regional player

before we ran the campaign.

NARRATOR: In 1941, Karcher
opened a hotdog stand

in South Central Los Angeles.

He then open a burger joint
called Carl's Jr.

because it was smaller
than his first restaurant.

Gradually, Carl's Jr. burgers

spread throughout
the western United States.

By the 1990s, Karcher no longer
ran his namesake companies.

And his successors were
fielding provocative ideas

from their advertising agency

in an effort to gain
more market share.

WELTMAN: They weren't
particularly comfortable

with what we were doing
at first,

but they wanted
to sell hamburgers.

NARRATOR: They started
with the basics

of what makes people tick.

LAMBIASE: We have the same
brains that we've had

for over 10,000 years.

We have the brains
of a hunter-gatherer.

And so we are still
hunting and gathering

for these kinds of sexual cues

that we might not really
recognize as such,

but that advertisers know
will work us over.

♪

NARRATOR: The agency did
rigorous research among the men

who tended to do their
hunting and gathering

at the drive-thru window.

WELTMAN: What we did was we got
heavy fast-food users

in a focus group,

and we asked them
what makes a good burger.

Every guy sort of bent
over the table,

and they would hold their hands

and they would describe this
drippy, messy, juicy burger,

and they become like these
ape sort of creatures.

They thought about
hamburgers and eating

with, like, a very primitive
part of their mind.

And we took the tape
to the client,

and turned the sound off,

and had the client watch
their customers,

they looked like
a bunch of monkeys,

like, sitting around a fire.

And we said, 'That's the guy
we have to appeal to.'

NARRATOR: They'd found what
brought out the ape in the man.

Now, they had to map
the most direct route

to the simian part
of their brains.

WELTMAN: It wasn't
rocket science.

Get the hottest girl
who says things are hot

to talk about a hot burger.

McKINNEY: Paris Hilton
did the first ad

on the car with the burger,

and even as a young girl, you
know, that caught my attention,

and 'Wow, she's gorgeous,'
and 'I want to do that!'

NARRATOR: The first of the new
breed of burger spots

was produced for the Super Bowl,
but censored by the network.

And the ad only ran regionally.

But the buzz it created
was so immense

that it soon spawned

a long-running
national campaign.

WELTMAN: We made the burgers
messy and drippy in the ads,

and they'd get all over stuff.

NARRATOR: This typically steamy
Carl's Jr. spot

features reality TV star
and model Audrina Patridge.

PATRIDGE: I'm totally obsessed.

I have to be a little bad.

I call it my bikini burger.

WELTMAN: The campaign just
went through the roof,

and Carl's made enough money

to build a national
fast-food network.

NARRATOR: In 2015
a Carl's Jr. spot aired

in the western United States
during the Super Bowl.

It starred model and actress
Charlotte McKinney.

MCKINNEY: And I was thrilled
to be picked for it.

I love going all natural.

It just makes me feel better.

In the ad, I am walking through
a farmers' market,

and you can't really tell
if it's me naked or not.

Lots of fruit placements,
and yeah.

NARRATOR: The in-joke
of the spot

is that everyone's oblivious
to the voluptuous model

except the guys squarely
in the fast food demographic,

anyone channeling
their inner ape.

McKINNEY: Nothing between me

and my 100% all-natural,

juicy, grass-fed beef.

It went viral.

It was the highest viewed ad
they've ever had.

NARRATOR: Carl's Jr. claimed
a record-breaking

three billion impressions
across all media for the spot.

The one-time LA burger joint
has expanded to 36 countries

including 300 new restaurants
in Australia.

McKINNEY: What I think works
with this campaign

is the shock factor.

You're looking at beautiful
women doing, you know,

odd things with food,
and it draws attention.

NARRATOR: When it comes
to brazen sex commercials,

the carnivores at Carl's Jr.

are closely rivaled
by the vegans of PETA.

NADIA TAHA:
Sexy Carl's Jr.'s ads,

that's what we're up against.

And so PETA has to resort to
a similar degree of brashness

to grab headlines and
to grab people's attention.

NARRATOR: But PETA,

People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals,

is seeking not to exploit
our primitive urges

but to reverse them,

to steer consumers away
from animal products

with shock value ads.

REICHERT: They're using sex
to really make a statement,

to stand out, to be shocking, to
draw people into that message.

NARRATOR: PETA's approach
grabs our attention,

because they don't showcase
anonymous models.

Rather, A-list animal lovers.

TAHA: No one can resist

looking at a naked body
of a beautiful celebrity.

REICHERT: Otherwise, we're just
not gonna pay attention

to PETA ads, but if they use
something that,

boom, gets our attention,
we'll pay attention to it,

and then we also might
get our vegetables

along with our eye candy.

NARRATOR: The campaign
began in 1991

when the girl band
the Go Go's appeared

clothed only in a banner
with the tagline,

'We'd Rather Go-Go Naked
Than Wear Fur!'

The celebrities who've bared all
for PETA ads

over the past 25 years could
fill up any red carpet event.

First, using
the 'I'd rather go naked' line

then as tattoos came into vogue

in the early years of this
century, 'Ink, not mink.'

TAHA: We have worked
with everyone

from comedians like
David Cross and Steve-O

to movie stars like Eva Mendes

to TV stars like Taraji Henson
and Lisa Edelstein.

♪

NARRATOR: In 2009, PETA produced
a steamy commercial

that openly sexualized
vegetables

and the vegans who love them

and submitted it for
the Super Bowl broadcast.

The network banned it, which
played right into PETA's hands.

REICHERT: PETA has certainly
a definite strategy

in terms of not only trying
to attract our attention

if those ads are
available online,

but also they can come back
and claim,

'Look, we're banned
from the networks.

Look at what they've done,'

which certainly
is gonna generate

even more attention for PETA.

TAHA: And so what PETA does

is grab as much of that
market share as we possibly can

by using whatever imagery
is out there,

including the human fascination
with sex.

NARRATOR: Advertisers have long
used perfect, sexy bodies

to sell their wares.

Finally, the millions of
all-natural, imperfect people,

who are their customers,
struck back.

TRISTAN TAORMINO:
They are bodies of size.

They are women of color.

They are people with big butts.

NARRATOR: For well over
a hundred years,

advertisers have plied
the strategy of using sex,

mating their products
with flawless bodies.

The old Woodbury soap ads
first cemented the trend

by displaying their dreamy women
with creamy skin.

ROXANE GAY: Advertising offer us
very strict norms

for what the body
should look like.

And so there are people out
there who are trying to produce

counter-narratives that
are more inclusive.

DITA VON TEESE: I think
it's really empowering

when you do get to see
other kinds of bodies

in a sensual, sexual way,

and I wish that we could
see more of that.

NARRATOR: In this century,
another soap company

opened a new door
to their customers.

WOMAN: We had an option
of two pathways to walk,

and they led to two doorways.

JANE WARD: In the 2000s,
Dove launched their campaign

that is focused on the variation

in women's bodies.

SCOTT: The Dove Campaign
for Beauty,

they decided to feature
real women.

They had a whole variety of
the shapes and sizes of women,

and that captured
people's attention.

WOMAN: I went through
the average door.

WOMAN: Really?
WOMAN: Yeah.

WOMAN: Oh, my gosh.

WOMAN: Yeah.
I didn't even hesitate.

TAORMINO: They are bodies
of size.

They are women of color.

They are people with big butts.

They're things we don't see
when we see the typical

kind of, you know, standard we
think of, like, the great body.

LAMBIASE: The Dove Campaign
for Real Beauty

is a great example of a company

that has tried to
make a difference

in that kind of advertising
that is done

over the last 10 years.

WOMAN: I wanted to go through
the average door,

but my mom just pulled me
over to the beautiful door.

TAORMINO: It was a step
in the right direction.

I think we have to stop
selling women on this idea

that the woman on the cover
of that magazine

is who you should aspire to be,

because the woman on that cover
of the magazine isn't even real!

WOMAN: It was quite
a triumphant feeling.

It was like telling the world
I think I'm beautiful.

NARRATOR: In 2006, Dove released
an online film

that time-lapsed a model as
she was primped and Photoshopped

before her image
reached a billboard.

This exposé of the fakery
behind advertising

was one of the first
commercials to go viral.

In 2013, Dove posted another
landmark film online.

FLORENCE: I showed up to a place
I had never been,

and there was a guy
with a drafting board.

MELINDA: We couldn't see them.
They couldn't see us.

NARRATOR: First, the artist
sketched the woman

describing herself.

GIL ZAMORA: What would be
your most prominent feature?

WOMAN: I kind of have
a fat, rounder face.

NARRATOR: Then the same woman
as depicted by a third party.

MAN: She had nice eyes.

They lit up when she spoke.

WOMAN: Cute nose.

MAN: She had blue eyes,
very nice blue eyes.

ZAMORA: This is the sketch
that you helped me create,

and that's the sketch that
somebody described of you.

NARRATOR: Real Beauty Sketches
became one of the most watched

and shared video ads
of all time,

with nearly 180 million views.

ZAMORA: Do you think you're
more beautiful than you say?

FLORENCE: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

NARRATOR: While advertisers
are quick

to employ sex to sell
their products,

they suddenly get prudish when
it comes to a certain item

that's actually used for sex.

BRUCE WEISS: It's just one
of the big hypocrisies

that we deal with,
even this day in 2016,

where the condom is
seen as a no-no,

don't show it,
don't talk about it.

SCOTT: Condom companies
have a unique challenge

in how they sell their products.

There is FCC regulation
in what you can show

and what you can say.

WEISS: You can turn on the TV
on any given Sunday,

and be watching football,

and you'll see a woman eating
a hamburger in a orgasmic way,

but you can't put on a condom ad
to safely protect you.

I think people think
that somehow

people would be corrupted
by seeing an advertisement

about a condom,
which is completely silly.

NARRATOR: American media outlets
are prohibited

from showing the condom itself

or visually linking the product
with a sex act,

forcing even venerable companies
like Trojan Condoms

into sex-free messages,
like using biblical quotes.

ANNOUNCER: To everything
there is a season and a time

to every purpose
under the heaven.

The makers of Trojan Condoms
believe

there is a time for children,
the right time.

WEISS: Way back when
in the 1970s

when we first put
our advertising on air,

we talked only about protection.

ANNOUNCER: The makers
of Trojan Condoms

have been helping people
for over half a century

safely practice
responsible parenthood.

WEISS: That has changed
over time

as Americans have increasingly
grown comfortable

talking about pleasure.

That is, after all, why people
have sex, it's for pleasure.

[screaming]

MAN: Two times!

WOMAN: Two times!

MAN: Honey, you forgot some!

ANNOUNCER: Introducing
new Trojan Groove condoms.

NARRATOR: In 2013,
a Trojan commercial

winked at their censors

with the provocative ad
that never once mentioned sex.

ANNOUNCER: Nothing feels
like the freedom

of Trojan Pure Ecstasy.

New Trojan Pure Ecstasy condoms,

revolutionary design and
smoothness inside and out.

New Trojan Pure Ecstasy condoms.
Feels like nothing's there.

NARRATOR: Sex may always have to
wear a fig leaf in mass media...

WOMAN: Help me!

NARRATOR: But what happens
when sex in advertising

meets the uninhibited ways
of the Internet?

MAN: Now we've got
your attention again...

MAN: Do you want to buy a house?

NARRATOR: Since the 1800s
one thing's held true

about sex in advertising,

the narrower the niche,
the racier the content.

But now with the Internet,

an outlet exists
for every imaginable

type of niche advertising.

REICHERT: We will see much more
provocative advertising,

but it's gonna be
more individualized

and more targeted
to niche audiences,

people that are much more open
to sex in advertising.

VON TEESE: Follow me.

Now let's play a little game.

NARRATOR: Since this commercial
from the 1970s,

Perrier has never been shy about
equating sexual excitement

with its sparkling water.

[woman singing opera]

[laughter]

So when Perrier created
an interactive campaign

for the censor-free Internet,
the heat was on.

WOMAN: It started with
a simple truth--

the more people in a room,
the hotter the temperature.

Trust me.

We shot a club's interior
several times,

each take becoming more crowded
and hotter than before.

NARRATOR: When the number
of online views

swelled into the millions,

the virtual club became
more and more uninhibited.

MAN: And as the temperature
soared, so did the sexiness.

MAN: It got so hot, even
the club itself started to melt.

WOMAN: In less than three weeks,

11.5 million people transformed
our first video

into amazingly sexy content.

The experience has been

hotly discussed on TV

and thousands of blogs.

MAN: A totally new way
of using YouTube

and prove that Perrier is
the ultimate refreshment

when things turn hot.

MAN: These yours?
MAN: Thanks, mate.

NARRATOR: Internet advertisers
are now showing

frank sexual imagery

to pitch some of the most
expensive products of all--

multimillion-dollar homes.

ANNOUNCER: 92 Savoy Drive.

So private, you can walk
around naked.

NARRATOR: The Australian
real estate firm Neo

sparked a worldwide buzz
with their Internet ads.

WOMAN: Help me! Emergency!

NARRATOR: Blending elements
of Hollywood films

with self-aware salesmanship.

MAN: Now we've got
your attention again...

MAN: Do you want to buy a house?

DISPATCHER: Can describe
the home, please?

WOMAN: It's a three-level home,
contemporary design,

open-plan living,
gourmet kitchen.

DISPATCHER:
Oh, that sounds lovely.

WOMAN: And a lingerie model
tied to a chair!

Help me!

NARRATOR: The real estate agents
produced their first film

about customer's property
as a last-ditch effort

after it failed to sell
by the usual means.

IAN ADAMS: They'd spent $30,000

on traditional
marketing campaign,

newspapers, print, online,
real estate advertising,

and $30,000 later,
the house passed in an auction,

had no bidders registered.

They then approached us

and wanted to know
what they could do.

We went out with a budget
of $15,000,

and we created the movie
that became

the number one real estate movie
in the industry.

The last figure I heard,

it was close to four million
views globally,

and we sold the house
$300,000 over reserve

and also managed to sell all
the furniture on top of that.

[woman screams]

POLICE: On the floor, now.

BILLY ROSE: You know,
sex is beauty, beauty is sex,

and that's one way of drawing
attention to what we're selling.

NARRATOR: The idea hopped
the ocean to Hollywood,

where a real estate broker
needed a new way to connect

with his exclusive clientele.

ROSE: If I'm selling a home
in the Sunset Strip,

then that buyer is likely
to be a younger male

who's made a lot of money
recently,

and I'm probably gonna catch his
attention with sex or beauty.

NARRATOR: So Billy Rose
produced a short film.

It follows a woman
as she prepares

for her anniversary night...

in an $11 million home.

ROSE: We see her
practicing yoga,

and clearly she's got
a beautiful body,

and that's a sexy moment.

We get to then see
how sexy the pool is

and how sexy she looks in it,

and then the rest of it
being laid bare,

as she goes into
the steam shower, is steamy.

♪

NARRATOR: At the film's end,

the anniversary
she's celebrating

has a seductive twist.

ROSE: It goes back to wanting
to leave with a surprise,

be somewhat dramatic.

The reception actually has been
somewhat overwhelming.

You know, the good and the bad
of it is now everyone wants one.

I'm hoping we can do this
time and time again.

NARRATOR:
Sprawling across Los Angeles

is a billboard campaign
with more sex appeal

than the Hollywood sign.

And the story behind
this LA icon

is a textbook lesson
in how sex sells.

SOPHIA LIN: That's what works,
and that's what has worked,

and they're gonna
keep it that way.

NARRATOR: From Los Angeles
to Las Vegas,

one of the most eye-catching
roadside attractions

is this one.

LIN: The Work Boot Warehouse
billboard,

you're not gonna miss it.

It's basically
a big yellow billboard,

and it says Work Boot Warehouse.

Maybe?

[laughs]

NARRATOR: But like many stories
of sex in advertising,

these iconic local billboards
were a long time coming.

In the early 1990s
Work Boot Warehouse

ran street ads with
a straightforward visual

of sturdy footwear.

DON GRUBERGER: We were doing
okay for the first few years,

but it needed to grow,
and it needed to grow faster.

NARRATOR: Then the rise
of grunge music and fashion

gave Don Gruberger
a simple but effective idea.

GRUBERGER: 1994 started,
mid '90s,

where a lot of the girls were
wearing logger boots, you know,

beefy, chunky, waffle sole
kind of boots,

and that's where I originally
got the idea

of having a girl wearing boots
on a billboard campaign.

NARRATOR: Sophia Lin became
the new face and body

of the billboard campaign.

LIN: I just moved to California
from Kansas.

I had no idea what the heck
Work Boot Warehouse was.

Depending on which billboard,

I could be sitting up
more like this,

or I could be laying down
kind of like that,

with like, my legs maybe
kicked up in the air.

NARRATOR:
It's sex in advertising

stripped down to the basics.

A humble workaday product
plus an attractive model

equals dollar signs.

GRUBERGER: I think
it's engrained,

so, you see a pretty a girl,
you look.

REICHERT: It grabs attention,

and if you can get them to stop
for half a second longer

on your advertisement,

then that is actually
moving them closer to a sale.

GRUBERGER: We've used cleavage,

in particular Sophia's cleavage,

to make people
remember our name.

So that branding has
worked very well.

But it's not just the cleavage,

I think it's her whole look.

LIN: A girl on a billboard
and she's smiling,

and it seems like she's really
comfortable and having fun,

and that's what works,
and that's what has worked,

and they're gonna
keep it that way.

GRUBERGER: It's very memorable,

because I've had people
telling me for years and years

they recognize the billboard,
they recognize the name.

If I just mention the name now,

they say, 'Oh, you're the one
with the billboards?'

'Yes, that's us.'

NARRATOR: And the long-running
Work Boot model

has parlayed her exposure on the
billboards to a career as a DJ.

LIN: Who would have thought
a girl from Kansas

would be on a billboard
for this many years?

And it's a super
successful campaign.

It's just kind of mind-blowing.
It's cool.

♪

NARRATOR: In the competitive
world of advertising,

one figure endures as the master
of using sex to sell.

REICHERT: When I think
of controversy in advertising,

the person that comes to mind
is Calvin Klein.

It's a rap sheet in terms
of all the times

that he's pushed the boundary
too far and had to apologize.

And especially in 1995 where
he had some underage models

that were filmed in a basement.

KLEIN: And I must tell you
that I really apologize.

NARRATOR: Even in 2016,

the Prince of Provocation
is still at it.

BIEBER: Are you turned on
right now? Yeah.

PRODUCER: Are you?

BIEBER: Yeah, I'm turned on.

NARRATOR: His campaign about
the things people do

in their Calvin Klein underwear

includes one that can't
be shown on TV.

DREW PINSKY: Calvin Klein
has taken it too far.

Have you seen the upskirt stuff
they have now?

Calvin Klein has taken it
to the point

where they're showing
perverse images

and then asking the viewer to be
the pervert in response to it,

and it's deeply disturbing.

Yet here we are
talking about Calvin Klein.

So, mission accomplished, guys,
well done.

NARRATOR: The cardinal function
of sex in advertising

is to attract attention
to a product.

So to continue to get noticed,

advertisers will keep
pushing the boundaries

and even cross a few lines.

COHEN: We're never gonna be over
sex selling things.

That will always be.

Put a hot naked dude
next to a toaster,

yeah, I want to buy the toaster.

♪

RYAN: Sex along with violence
is something

that primates of any type
are incapable of ignoring.

What follows may or may not
be worth my attention,

but you've got it.

So I think that's the function
of sex in adverting,

it just pulls in your attention.

ABBEY LEE KERSHAW: I'm not
wearing any underwear, though.

[laughs]