Beds Gail Heriot

Enlighten me on this:  I’ve been shopping for a mattress.  I mentioned this to a colleague of mine who began musing about mattress advertisements.  He pointed out that nearly every product on the market is sold by associating it with sex.  Cell phones are hawked by the very attractive Catherine Zeta Jones. Currently, Carl’s Jr. is marketing chicken breast sandwiches by featuring juvenile jokes about … well .. never mind.  Thirty years ago, it was even less subtle, but the effect is still pretty strong today (though sometimes more tasteful).  Sex obviously makes the cash register ring.

An important exception to this pattern is the mattress–which unlike cell phones and chicken sandwiches is actually used for sex.  The ads tend to be on the fuddy duddy side.  They talk about back support–not a sexy subject at all.  No, I’m not taking a position for or against such ads.  I’m just curious what’s driving it.  Did the world just overdose on annoying water beds ads from the 1970s?  Or am I missing the sexually titillating ads for mattresses of today?