Viola's Dreamworld

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

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Please refer to http://www.corporate.mediacorp.sg/press_release/pr_1185411069.htm for the press release on Mocca.com.

Mocca.com - Classifieds, Simply Better Online
What is mocca.com?Mocca.com is MediaCorp's platform for classified advertising and online communities in Singapore. ("Mocca" stands for MediaCorp Online Communities and Classifieds Advertising.)

Using sex to sell. Is this right or wrong?

I am sure most people have seen a rather eye-catching advertisement on our television screens recently, which is none other than the advertisement for mocca.com. All of us who have watched the commercial are aware of how the advertisers used sex to sell their product, which is mocca.com. The female models used were wearing bikinis, and at the very end, the male lead was completely nude, using a mere piece of cardboard to cover his privates.

Reading in between the lines, the advertisement was implying that without sex, no one would be interested. In the beginning of the commercial, the male lead was ignored when he tried to sell his car. Despite promoting all the good features his car had, he did not get any response. But when the female models, all scantily clad, stepped in to help, it was a more successful attempt. Does this hold in our society today, too?

The main purpose of an advertisement is to attract attraction, and generate interest among the audience. I agree that mocca's advertisement fulfils these criteria. It certainly made a lot of us sit up, notice it, and then talk about it.

But we have to consider the people sitting in front of the television. It is not just adults, for among the audience are children too. In fact, children watch more television than adults nowadays, the reason being that adults are too caught up in their hectic lifestyles to fork out time to watch television programmes. Because of this, the quality of the shows and advertisements aired on television has to be of a certain level. For example, advertisements with nude content cannot be shown freely lest they influence the minds of the children. Similarly, shows where its characters sprout vulglarities freely has to be censored. An example would be the airing of the movie Pirates of the Carribean a few months ago, on our local Channel 5. A scene which saw Keira Knightley shouting the vulglarity "fuck!" was censored. I remember laughing when I saw that scene, for the sound for that particular word had been muted and the subtitle had been erased. Channel 5 obviously saw the possible influence the word might have on the young minds watching the show, so they censored that particular component.
You can say that I was appalled when I saw the commercial. My first thought was, "What would the children watching this think?" I understand that the main aim of Mocca was to generate larger audience response and in the process, increasing revenue as more people are attracted to their website. Still, we cannot forget our moral values. Since young, we have been told that sex is wrong (until we are married adults, that is) and nudity is scorned. This notion has been challenged over the years, especially in today's open-minded society.

The older audience may be mature enough to accept the commercial as it is, but children do not have this mindset and ability. By giving them the idea through this advertisement that sex sells, they will be negatively influenced. They might grow up thinking that sex is easy and can be easily manipulated to sell off things, which is not entirely true.

I wish advertising firms would give more deliberate consideration before they release their advertisements out into the public eye. We must always remember that the young generation now will be the people of the future, so do we really want to nurture them this way? We want to teach them the right values and to do the right things. To achieve this, we must practice responsibility in everything that we choose to put out in front of them.

-when are you coming back? ;