The Strangest Glamour Photography Shoots In Advertising
For as long as advertising has existed, there has been a simple two-word concept that has driven a considerable number of advertisers: sex sells.
As a result of this, there are countless examples of glamour photography being used to sell all kinds of products beyond the highly successful and often-discussed Wonderbra billboard or the controversial YSL Sophie Dahl billboard.
Whilst most of the time sensual photography makes sense given the products being sold, there are other cases when the sexuality of the shoot does not necessarily fit the product being sold.
Here are some of the strangest glamour shoots in advertising.
Jo Guest Really Wants Detailed Complex Space Simulators
Given that until a decade ago many advertisers assumed that the overwhelming majority of video game players were not only men but teenagers, it is perhaps not a surprise that so many games leaned on sexualised adverts to sell their games. Some games, such as the infamous Evony, still do.
Whilst having a beautiful model portray the fictional adventurer Lara Croft for photoshoots makes sense, having the scantily-clad Jo Guest covering herself with a Battlecruiser 3000AD game box makes far less sense.
One wonders how many people bought the game thinking that a glamour model was also playing their exceedingly complex space simulator with one of the most infamously confusing user interfaces ever created.
Selling Game Boys With BDSM
No, BDSM in this context does not stand for Boulder Dash and Super Mario.
In 1997, typically family-friendly video game company Nintendo decided to sell the new, smaller version of their highly-popular game boy console with a glamour model tied to a bed in a dingy bedsit. That is not a joke.
Sometimes considered to be the most incongruous video game advert ever made, the Advertising Standards Agency eventually banned it.
Glamorous Murder
The 2006 game Hitman: Blood Money was about playing a bald man with a barcode on his head who assassinated people in increasingly silly ways, from beating them with a golf club to swapping a prop gun for a real weapon during a theatrical production.
The advertising, however, featuring glamorous shots of beautiful models being murdered, ended up causing considerable controversy which helped the game sell over two million copies.