If there is a marketing topic which generates some really hot debates then it is — Does Sex Sell. I wouldn’t get into the actual debate itself but rather give you two cases and let you decide for yourself.

Anne’s Experience: The last person I heard talking about it was Marketing Sherpa’s Anne Holland. According to some research they did on their website, and here is what they found –

In every single instance when a female face was above the fold on a homepage, both the male and female executives in our lab spent time looking at her. Men’s faces didn’t get nearly the same level of attention.

But is that a good thing? According to Anne, no it isn’t. And the reason is that you are getting their attention at wrong place.

In other words, yes, businesspeople, male and female, alike will absolutely look at a beautiful woman. But, that look could be distracting eyes from the copy and hotlinks more important to your business. So, you’re getting attention in the wrong place.

One B-to-B marketer actually tested the “does sex sell?” concept for a lead generation campaign MarketingSherpa gave an award to last year (see link below.) Results: a cheerful male model got 53% more responses than a beautiful female model.

Shoe’s Story: One of the better known Internet Marketers, Jeremy Shoemaker A.K.A ShoeMoney, did an experiment by comparing the results of a different strategy than what another Internet Marketer Andy Beal was doing.

Andy was running a contest offering people a chance to win a Microsoft Zune if they added him on an online community called MyBlogLog. Shoe, on the other hand, did nothing more than use the picture of a hot chick as as online avatar.

Results? On 7 Jan, Andy had 143 Members and ShoeMoney had 233 Members!

The above two examples clearly show that if you are looking for action response, then it may not be such a good strategy. However, as far as generating buzz is concerned, nothing can beat this strategy. =)