Measure Your Brand Effectiveness, Online

Sex sells. Or so Madison Avenue executives would have us believe.  Does adding a little skin to an advertising campaign do wonders for one's brand? We've read the stories and seen hard evidence that risqué ads do everything from a boost website traffic to create waves of chatter on social networks.

C-level executives around the world must ponder -- when a company's products are exploited with sexually charged imagery, besides the short-term interest such ads generate, what is the long term brand effect?

Team Heardable looked at three steamy advertising spots and then scanned each brand that sponsored them to see how one's brand scores were impacted. Our big takeaway? Review the ads and see the results (below).

A Motorola ad featuring Megan Fox naked in a bathtub. Motorola.com - Heardable Score: 377

Gillette's manscaping ad about full body grooming. Gillette.com - Heardable Score: 584

Paris Hilton's full frontal car wash ad for Carl's Jr. CarlsJr.com - Heardable Score: 501

Two out of the three brands featured above had moderate online brand scores and one brand had a low brand score. Brand impact results are inconclusive.

Sex does sell, we admit that. But we'd like companies to ask themselves -- will it brand? Said another way; If you choose to turbocharge your advertising campaign with titillating content, you really should ask yourself if this is the right move. Is a  short-term boost in website traffic or an increase in sales worth putting your brand at risk? THAT is the question.