Sex sells?

I am, and have always been, a believer in the power of suggestion. After all, it was just last night that those McDonald's ads I kept seeing during all the football I watched convinced me that I needed a greasy Quarter Pounder and some limp, lukewarm fries. No persuading that advertising works necessary here. And of course, should there be a good-looking woman connected to the product being sold, I'm a lot more likely to pay attention. I'm not proud of it, but it's an undeniable weakness of American... OK, all men, that advertisers have been preying on for years.

But sometimes, the sexy spokesmodel strategy can backfire. Case in point: if you've watched any TV in the past three months, you've likely seen Mercury's ad campaign with Jill Wagner (pictured). Now, I would probably never buy a Mercury anyway, but every time one of these commercials comes on, I am so distracted by the extreme hotness of the spokesmodel, I barely register the product. For instance, I couldn't tell you the name of a single Mercury model (likely repeated several times during the ad), yet I know Jill Wagner's name (never once mentioned in the ad). The only thing these commercials motivated me to investigate further was who she is. I cared about it enough to Google "Mercury spokesmodel" (which led me to discover that I'm not the only blogger who's suffering from this minor problem: Wez Says..., Jalopnik, and Population Statistic all feel my pain), but have absolutely no interest in checking out a single Mercury vehicle. So advertisers, here's your lesson: sex may sell, but make sure it doesn't overshadow your product. Instead of being perceived as a boring car company for old people, you'll become the boring car company with that hot girl in their commercials. Not really sure that's gonna have people flocking to the dealerships.