Luxe

INTRODUCTION

In a very competitive environment, characterized by a great number of advertising messages, companies have to create a differentiation’s strategy in order to enhance their notoriety and their legibility. For this reason some luxury companies decided to use shocking and sexual pictures in order to augment the memorization’s rate of their advertising campaigns. With thepurpose of attracting a wider range of consumers, brands started to use pornographic codes and images in their ads and this phenomenon is called “Porno Chic”.

In our analysis we are going to focalize on the role of “Porno Chic” campaigns in the luxury sector and their perception in Spain, Italy and Greece.

Firstly we are going to give a brief description of the phenomenon of eroticism andpornography. Secondly we will explain how the cultural and economic environment of the three countries considered influence the perception of sexuality. Then we will investigate the emergence of the “Porno Chic” phenomenon and its characteristics, continuing with the presentation of some examples of advertising campaigns and their perception in Spain, Italy and Greece. We will conclude with theanalysis of the future development of the “Porno Chic”.

1. EROTICISM AND PORNOGRAPHY: DEFINITON AND HISTORY

Eroticism and pornography in modern society have always been disapproved and censored, so they have been rarely studied in detail. But these two phenomenons represent significant aspects of the modern culture and they had a key role in the development of advertising techniques in theluxury sector. Giving a definition of the two terms is not simple, as it implies considering material and immaterial elements that change from culture to culture and evolve throughout time. We will now try to define these two concepts and to understand the subtle boundary between them.

1.1 – Eroticism

The word eroticism derives from “Eroticu” that comes from the Greek term “Eros” name of one ofthe most important Greek gods. In the Greek mythology, Eros was the god of love, pictured originally as the symbol of the universe’s internal cohesion and the attractive forces that push the nature’s elements to melt. Philosophers and writers tried to understand what Eros was. Homer described Eros as an external force that seizes people that experience desire. This force perfuses the organs thatfor Greeks are the feelings’ center: the breast (stèthos) and the hearth (thymos). Platoon, in his Symposium, dealt with the topic of sentimental relations and their role for the individual. In the Greek world, love was intended as the contemplation of beauty in all forms, this aestheticism didn’t leave space for love as affection. The sexual relation played also an important role for the individualbecause of its educating function: in the Greek society’s upper classes, homosexual relations were very common: usually a mature man devoted his sexual attentions to a young man that had recently left his childhood. This relation went beyond the simple carnal pleasure, but it involved a social and cultural education of the youth.
In ancient Rome pornographic and erotic themes were used tomythicize sex in order to explain the origins of life, to obtain its continuation and to guarantee the fertility of the fields. The phallus was considered as an object of worship and a symbol of fertility. These beliefs had a great impact on the popular culture of Italy, Greece and Spain, where we can still find rituals linked with phallic objects[1].

1.2 – Changes of eroticism’s concept in modernsociety

The Christian preaching against material worldly goods overthrew eroticism and the cult of Eros. This is why nowadays eroticism is linked to transgression: after many centuries of repression of the Church’s doctrine, eroticism finds his manifestation in prohibition and infringement. The desire of violation expressed itself in art, literature, theatre, photography and cinema. These works…