Consumer reactions to nudity in print advertising: Comparing same ‐ gender and opposite ‐ gender effects

It is often assumed that exposure to nude stimuli in advertising influences consumer behavior positively. However, the empirical evidence concerning the effects of nudity on consumer reactions is inconclusive. The goal of this study is to disentangle the effects of opposite ‐ gender and same ‐ gender nudity on female and male consumers' reactions. This study, thereby, offers a framework for the appropriate choice of seminude or fully clothed human stimuli based on advertisers' objectives and consumer – model gender interactions. The empirical data were derived from a large ‐ scale market research initiative from Germany with 61,399 consumer evaluations of 147 real ads from 16 product categories. Female consumers show positive same ‐ gender results for both seminude and fully clothed female models, indicating strong homophily, but nonsignificant opposite ‐ gender effects on information search, positive attitude change, integration of brand into consideration set, and purchase intentions. In contrast, male consumers demonstrate a significantly positive and equally strong influence of opposite ‐ gender and same ‐ gender seminude stimuli on all of the four variables.

The inconsistent findings of previous studies, which provide little empirical guidance to marketers, most likely result from empirical studies dating back over a period spanning more than 50 years. For example, a recent meta-analysis of 72 publications (Wirtz et al., 2018) that appeared since 1969, with nearly half (42%) of the analyzed articles published before the millennium's turn. During this period, both gender roles and sexual lifestyles changed drastically, thereby questioning the representativeness of the derived meta-analytic findings for contemporary society. The inconsistent findings could also have been the result of the omission to consider the interplay of consumer-model gender relations.
Thus far, as a consequence, the findings fail to fully disentangle the gender-specific effects of nudity on consumer reactions. This limitation contrasts starkly with sociological research showing that attitudes toward both sexuality and gratuitous stimuli are significantly influenced by gender, leading to noticeably different reactions (Conley, 2011;Greer & Buss, 1994;Kozak et al., 2009). Advertising literature, across the board, also provides robust empirical evidence of consumer-model gender effects in various marketing communication contexts (Berg, 2015;Eisend, 2010;. It has been shown that females respond differently than males to advertisements, resulting in different levels of advertising effectiveness (Moore, 2007;Teichert et al., 2018).
We, therefore, estimated consumer-model gender interactions by focusing upon opposite-gender and same-gender effects (i.e., female consumer-male model, female consumer-female model, male consumer-female model, male consumer-male model) in a single study setting using large-scale consumer data based on real advertisements. This study posits that there are consumer and model gender-dependent effects when using nudity in print advertising, and that disentangling these will provide rich theoretical insights that have important implications for advertising professionals. For example, it is imperative for advertisers to understand the potential (dis)advantages of using seminude female or male stimuli to avoid offending the target audience when targeting female consumers.
In addition, previous studies largely focused on stimuli effects on attitudes and purchase intention (e.g., Liu et al., 2009;Sabrina et al., 2018;Wirtz et al., 2018;Wyllie et al., 2014). The effects on other intermediate but nonetheless critical variables underlying consumer reactions-such as knowledge acquisition, brand preference development, and convictionhave received limited attention (Patti et al., 2017). Rather than limiting the measurement of consumer reactions only to a subset of expected behaviors, this study investigates the effectiveness of nudity in print advertising through major four variables of consumer responses, ranging from information search, through attitude change and conviction, to action (Hansen, 2005;Scholten, 1996). We, thus, differentiate four outcome variables that consumers go through as they form brand attitudes and purchase intention: (1) information search intention, (2) positive brand attitude change, (3) integration of brand into a relevant set, and (4) brand purchase intention.
The empirical data for the measurement of effects of nudity comes from a large-scale market research initiative of a major German print media initiative (Ad Impact Monitor). The study benefits from a sample of 61,399 consumer evaluations of 147 real ads from 16 product categories.
Such a large-scale sample consisting of evaluations of real advertisements offers unique empirical advantages in terms of external validity and generalizability and aids the measurement of the effectiveness of nudity in advertisements on consumer reactions. In summary, this study provides insights into the effectiveness of the use of nudity in print advertisements by disentangling and comparing the same-gender and opposite-gender consumer-model gender insights, differentiating results across the consumer persuasion process, and using large-scale consumer data with real advertisements across a broad spectrum of product categories.

| LITERATURE REVIEW
The interdisciplinary literature on sexual appeals in advertisement has a longstanding tradition. Since early works in the late 1960s (Morrison & Sherman, 1972;Steadman, 1969), scholars from different disciplines have continued to investigate the effects of nudity displayed in advertising on different types of consumer reactions.
Thus, there is ample empirical material to draw upon when looking for scientific recommendations for effective advertisement design.
However, there were larger changes in prevailing attitudes in society toward sexual and gender-related issues (e.g., homosexuality, feminism). Thus, the applicability of yesterday's findings for todays' environment need not be taken for granted. Instead, we will provide an overview of historical findings and relate them to actual considerations to derive our hypotheses among mixed empirical evidence.

| Nudity in advertising and overall consumer reactions
It is commonplace for marketers to use a range of intrinsic and extrinsic cues in advertising to influence consumer reactions (Dean, 1999). Sex appeal is a long and widely used extrinsic cue employed by advertisers to grab consumers' attention and arouse emotions, in turn, influencing behavioral reactions (Hyllegard et al., 2009;Reid & Soley, 1983). Gratuitous sexual stimuli are used across the media vehicles by marketers based on the notion that "sex sells" (Richmond & Hartman, 1982;Wyllie et al., 2014). In an effort to trigger primal biological instincts of consumers, thereby promoting attention to and interest in the advertisement (Dahl et al., 2009), marketers have increasingly resorted to using completely nude or partially clad models in advertising (Beetles & Harris, 2016;Sugiarto & de Barnier, 2019). In line with Reichert et al. (2011), seminude models are identified as the ones that are partially clad (e.g., a female model in bra and underwear, while a male model in underwear or shorts). It has been believed that nudity in advertising automatically evokes positive feelings among consumers as the responses are largely "… spontaneous, noncontrolled and different from more carefully considered responses" (Dahl et al., 2009). In the past, although some studies found negative or nonsignificant effects, the majority of studies found significant positive effects of using nude or partially clad human stimuli on overall consumer reactions (Amyx & Amyx, 2011;Dahl et al., 2009;Huang, 2004;LaTour & Henthorne, 1993;Putrevu, 2008;Reichert, LaTour, & Kim, 2007;Sherman & Quester, 2005;P. M. Simpson et al., 1996;Wyllie et al., 2014). This leads us to posit that: H1: Usage of seminude stimuli in print advertisements exerts a positive effect on consumers' attitude and intention formation.
An in-depth literature review (  Wise et al., 1974), the context in which sex appeal is used (Boddewyn, 1991;Garcia & Yang, 2006;Vohs et al., 2014), the intensity of sexual stimuli (Reichert et al., 2011;P. M. Simpson et al., 1996), consumer involvement Putrevu, 2008), and product category settings (Chang & Tseng, 2013;J. H. Ferguson et al., 1990;Nelson & Paek, 2015). During the early and mid-1970s, the research focused exclusively on female nudity in advertising and found that the use of female models had negative effects on consumers' attention, attitude toward ad and brand, and purchase intention. However, later studies focused on both female and male nudity in advertising and often found positive consumer reactions. For example, Lass and Hart (2004) observed that using female seminude models in alcohol advertising across the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy results in positive reactions from both male and female respondents.
To further understand the effectiveness of sexual appeal in advertising, we refer to the broader literature focusing on gender differences and sexual psychology. These works permit us to identify important opposite-gender and same-gender reactions to nudity in advertising.

| Gender-specific responses to oppositegender nudity displayed in advertising
Objectification (Calogero et al., 2011;Money & Ehrhardt, 1972) is presented in socio-psychological literature as a process whereby individuals are treated as an object containing sexual attributes, and approached on the basis of their utility as sex object independent of other qualities (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). Contrary to a common preconception, objectification is not restricted to female stimuli, but rather is a process whereby a person, who may be male or female, adopts a purely externalized view of either the self or another (Calogero et al., 2011, p. 35;Gültzow et al., 2020). Studies have shown that the process of objectification can also be observed when analyzing male erotic stimuli (Hallsworth et al., 2005;Rohlinger, 2002), and when analyzing other social targets (Gruenfeld et al., 2008). Newer studies have shown that some females objectify males in certain situations (Evans, 2017;Neville, 2015). Despite those more recent findings, it has generally been observed that males are more likely to engage in the process of objectification and are therefore more attracted to opposite-gender visuals, whereas females tend to assess a person's attractiveness by reference to personality traits instead of purely on the basis of visual appeal (Kozak et al., 2009). Other studies have also noted that males are more likely than females to adopt an instrumental, purely pleasure-seeking attitude toward sexual relations (Baumeister et al., 2001;Greer & Buss, 1994). In line with this, advertising studies have found that male consumers are more likely to see opposite-gender people as desirable objects, resulting in pleasant feelings and consequent actions (Reichert & Walker, 2006), with stronger opposite-gender reactions (Gray et al., 2011).
Barring a few of the studies conducted during the 1970s and early '80s, which showed negative or no significant effects of female nudity in advertising on male consumer reactions (e.g., Alexander & Judd, 1978;Reidenbach & McCleary, 1983;Steadman, 1969), most studies have found that female nudity positively influences male consumers' attitudes and intention formation. Studies starting from Peterson and Kerin (1977) have shown that male consumers form favorable attitudes toward advertisements, products, and manufacturers using female nudity. Male consumers not only exhibit increased arousal, but also positive feelings and attitudes toward nude stimuli (LaTour, 1990). Patzer (1980) studied body soap as a product category and found that male consumers exhibit more positive cognitive, conative, and affective responses to a sexually appealing female model. LaTour (1990) and LaTour and Henthorne (1993) conducted experiments using female nudity in perfume advertising and found that male respondents display a higher level of arousal, and a more positive attitude toward the brand as a consequence of the use of seminude female models. Reichert, LaTour, and Kim (2007) studied opposite-gender reactions to nudity in advertising and found that males respond positively to the use of female nudity in advertising. Effects of this kind have been observed across product categories. For example, Jones et al. (1998), using bicycles as a neutral-product category, found male consumers to have significantly more favorable reactions to an ad using female nudity. Sabrina et al. (2018) also recently reported that using suggestive female models in print advertising results in more favorable male consumer responses. The overwhelmingly positive responses of male consumers to female nudity in advertising leads us to posit that: Past studies have shown that compared with male respondents, less positive opposite-gender reactions to displayed sexual stimuli are observed among female respondents (Gray et al., 2011). Psychological and advertising literature report that female consumers react less positively to nudity in advertising than male consumers (Gould, 1994;LaTour, 1990;Manceau & Tissier-Desbordes, 2015 Attitude toward ad, subjective norm Participants' attitudes were more positive when they were exposed to the fair labor message, than when they were exposed to the fair labor message in conjunction with one of the three Attitude toward ad, brand, and purchase intention Female consumers exposed to a mild intensity of sexual stimuli in the advertisement had a positive influence in contrast to the female consumers exposed to an explicit intensity 28 Manceau and Tissier-Desbordes Survey 760 respondents Sex and death as taboo in advertising Age, gender, social class Consumer opposition to showing death and nudity in advertising Women have a more negative attitude than men concerning the use of all taboos in advertising Note: Summary of key studies focusing on nudity in advertising published in leading international journals with an impact factor of more than 2.00. multibillion-dollar pornography industry mainly targets the male population (Rupp & Wallen, 2008). In line with this, Reichert, LaTour, Lambiase, et al. (2007) studied sexual objectification in advertising and found that female consumers are more offended by nudity in advertising than are male consumers.
As an explanation for the differences between male and female responses to the use of sexual stimuli, it has been argued that females' motivations for entering into sexual relationships are significantly influenced by ideals of intimacy and commitment as well as the pursuit of mere sexual pleasure (Conley, 2011). Evolutionary psychologists and sociobiologists have found relatively weaker opposite-gender effects for females as compared with males (Baldwin & Baldwin, 1997;Greer & Buss, 1994), and have portrayed women's interest in sex as being more occasion-based than that of men (Baumeister et al., 2001). The theory of differential plasticity propounded by Baumeister (2000) suggests that females' sex drive is more malleable than that of males due to the greater influence of cultural, social, and situational factors. Accordingly, female consumers find nudity acceptable only when it is used in a manner that is moderate and congruent with the product and ad-setting (Peterson & Kerin, 1977;Tissier-Desbordes & Manceau, 2002). For example, P. M. Simpson et al. (1996) studied ratchet wrench set and body oil categories and found that female consumers' mood and attitude toward advertisements grow more positive with the increased use of suggestive male stimuli, but decline in positivity as the use of male nudity becomes more pronounced. Whereas a mild intensity of sexual stimuli creates positive effects on attitude toward the ad and brand (Putrevu, 2008;Sengupta & Dahl, 2008), negative reactions result from blatant nudity in advertisements (Lundstrom & Sciglimpaglia, 1977;Wise et al., 1974).
Recent studies continue to confirm these historic findings across different cultural settings: Sabrina et al. (2018) found that the use of male nudity fails to generate a positive response among female consumers.
Lanseng (2016) experimented using skin protection cream and found that female respondents have higher negative reactions than male respondents when opposite-gender seminude models are used in advertisements. Liu et al. (2006) studied Chinese consumers' attitude toward nudity in an ad for bakery products and found a significantly positive effect of a male seminude model with a low sexual appeal on female consumer reactions. However, the effects were found to become nonsignificant as the level of male sexual appeal was increased.
In total, only a few studies point to positive effects (Putrevu, 2008;Sengupta & Dahl, 2008;P. M. Simpson et al., 1996), while a large number of studies show negative female reactions to male nudity in print advertising (e.g., Lanseng, 2016;Liu et al., 2006;Lundstrom & Sciglimpaglia, 1977;Sabrina et al., 2018;Wirtz et al., 2018;Wise et al., 1974). Given that females are in general (still) not considered to be culturally adept at interpreting nude male images (Eck, 2003), and also considering that the more recent publications (Langseng, 2016; Sabrina et al., 2018) hint at enduring negative effects of male nudity in advertisements, we hypothesize that: H3: Usage of seminude male stimuli in print advertisements exerts a negative effect on female consumers' attitude and intention formation.
2.3 | Gender-specific responses to same-gender nudity displayed in advertising In addressing consumer responses to same-gender nudity in advertisements it is necessary to make reference to factors different from those considered in relation to opposite-gender nudity, namely homophily and the countervailing factor of homophobia (Streukens & Andreassen, 2013). As outlined below, we postulate that homophobia is the stronger factor for male respondents (Morin & Garfinkle, 1978), whereas homophily is the stronger factor for female respondents (Lazarsfeld & Merton, 1954).
Controlling for sexual orientation, Chivers et al. (2007) found homophobia to be stronger in men than in women. Elliott et al. (1995), and Eck (2003) opined that males try to protect themselves against any suspicion of homosexuality and that this leads to negative reactions to same-gender stimuli. Another explanation refers to a stronger stimulus-evoked comparison of own attractiveness (Blond, 2008), leading to decreased satisfaction with males' own bodies (Baird & Grieve, 2006). Thus, Dens et al. (2008) found that scantily-dressed male models in advertising exert a negative effect on male consumers' body esteem. These arguments are mirrored by the empirical findings of a series of earlier studies. Sciglimpaglia et al. (1979) observed the negative effect of seminude male models on male consumers' reactions to advertisements. Belch et al. (1982) observed male respondents' negative reactions to nude or partially nude male models. P. M. Simpson et al. (1996) found that male consumers' purchase intent is negatively affected by the use of male nude stimuli in advertising. Thomas and Gierl (2015), furthermore, investigated the effects of different levels of eroticism in advertisements in an experimental setting. They also found negative effects of male nudity on male consumers' feelings, beliefs about the use of the model, and product evaluations. Therefore, we hypothesize that: H4: Usage of seminude male stimuli in print advertisements exerts a negative effect on male consumers' attitude and intention formation.
Originally proposed by Lazarsfeld and Merton (1954), a homophily effect refers to a tendency for demographically similar people to associate with each other. This homophily effect is considered to be one of the most robust conceptualizations in sociopsychology (Brashears, 2008;McPherson et al., 2001). It has been observed in gender and racial studies (Shrum et al., 1988 or her resulting actions. The respondents were chosen on a per stratum basis of gender, age, degree, and residence to ensure an adequate population representation. We used print advertisements in magazines as nudity appears most frequently in this medium. This trend was confirmed by Reichert et al. (1999) and a large number of previous studies that also used magazine ads in various experimental settings to measure the effects of nude stimuli on consumer reactions (Baker & Churchill, 1977;Stafford, 1998;Wyllie et al., 2014). For this study, advertisements from 16 major product categories were selected as the empirical base. The advertisements evaluated cover a wide range of products and services, The hierarchy-of-effects model, originally proposed by Lavidge and Steiner (1961), was used to measure the major variables of consumers' attitude and intention formation, beginning with knowledge, preference, and conviction and concluding with purchase (Hansen, 2005). From the original conceptualization of the attention-interest-desire-action (AIDA) model in the late 1800s (Yoo et al., 2004) to the recent associated model of Preston and Thorson (1984), variants of this hierarchy-of-effects model have clarified consumer reactions and facilitated the deduction of specific recommendations for marketing action (T. E. Barry, 1987;Jain et al., 2015). Different underlying variables of consumers' attitudes and intention formation have been operationalized by various studies along with variants of hierarchy-of-effects models (refer T. F. Barry & Howard (1990) for detailed review) and there seems to be little or no consensus on the variables or on their sequence (Scholten, 1996). Broadly, an advertisement is effectively designed if it supports the marketer in achieving any single marketing objective or a set of these objectives (Trivedi & Teichert, 2020). For example, a marketer introducing a new product may aim to build knowledge about the product's unique selling propositions, whereas a marketer featuring a mature brand may strive to reinforce conviction and to directly induce purchases in a target market.
To empirically assess the effectiveness of nudity's presence in print advertisements, four specific consumer actions along the hierarchy-ofeffects model are identified based on the works of Teichert et al. (2018) and . As the results are derived at the level of the single persuasion variable, most of the reasoning applies independently of the specific sequence undergone by consumers. Specifically, information search intention serves as an indicator to measure the process of creating knowledge about the product among the target audience. Positive attitude change represents the advertising goal of increased liking of a brand.
Creating preference and building conviction are assessed by using integration into a relevant set as an indicator. Finally, purchase intention serves as a proxy to measure the advertising goal of purchase.
Respondents were asked to specify which of these possible actions, if any, they would pursue after exposure to the advertising stimulus. Respondents were also asked to choose a single response in reaction to the advertisement stimuli and they did so with very few exceptions. Thus, the results were derived at the level of the single persuasion variable (information search to purchase intention) and "no relevant action taken" served as an overall reference value in the analyses. In total, 13.3% resulted in an information search intention, 8.1% led to a positive change in attitude, 13.8% led to integration into a relevant set, and 6.9% led to a purchase intention. In total, 57.9% of the advertisement viewings led to none of these four relevant actions, that is, either to no action at all or solely to a closer visual inspection of the advertisement. In the specific settings of this investigation, a closer visual inspection was treated as a nonrelevant action as it may have been a reaction to the visually attractive stimulus unrelated to the advertised products, potentially causing viewers' distraction (Parker & Furnham, 2007). There were very few cases of multiple answers (only 1.3% of the consumers reported more than one action), which we excluded from the analysis.
The questionnaire-based research method is in line with prior research regarding the usage of questionnaires as an appropriate tool to identify intentions (e.g., Geuens et al., 2011;Golden & Johnson, 1983). As the hierarchy-of-effects model is more of a conceptualization than a prescriptive model (Vakratsas & Ambler, 1999), the underlying four relevant consumer reactions are interpreted as a nominal, rather than an ordinal variable (see Teichert et al., 2018;. Overall, the data collection is based on real advertisements covering a broad range of product categories from a large number of respondents with broad demographics. This ensures high external validity for the study.

| Nudity in print advertisements: Overall effects on consumer reactions
We applied a multinomial logit model to simultaneously investigate how the use of nudity in print advertisements affects consumer reactions. For this purpose, we used advertisements that do not contain any human stimuli as a reference basis. This is in line with previous studies that had used ads without human stimuli, such as ads with only the product images (Chang & Tseng, 2013;Gould, 1995;Severn et al., 1990) or ads with other types of images such as a scenic place or a specific destination (Alexander & Judd, 1978;Grazer & Keesling, 1995;Hyllegard et al., 2009) as reference or control condition (for details refer to meta-analysis by Wirtz et al. (2018)). The model shows a significantly improved model fit (significantly lower −2 log-likelihood) than a baseline model, with Akaike's information criterion of 57.91 and Schwarz's Bayesian information criterion of 14.04 (see Table 2). The overall statistical measures, therefore, confirm the adequacy of the model. Table 3 describes the logit parameter estimates in relation to a shared baseline of no consumer reaction. We find that advertisements p < 0.01), resulting in acceptance of H2 (Table 4).
Compared with the male consumers, the analysis of the opposite-gender seminude stimuli on female consumers shows a very different picture on consumers' attitudes and intention formation (see Table 5). The effect of using male nudity in print advertisements is negative but nonsignificant for female consumer reactions, except integration of the brand into a relevant set where the effect is also not pronounced, resulting in rejection of H3.

| Effects of same-gender seminude stimuli on male and female consumer reactions
To test the hypothesized same-gender effects of nudity in print advertising on consumer decision-making, we again divided the sample into male and female consumers, respectively. For the male consumer, Table 4 shows that the effects of a seminude male model are It can be observed from Table 5 that female  influencing cognitive preferences (Black et al., 2010;Pollay, 1986).
Marketers have long believed that the use of sexual stimuli of various mation. This appears to conform with the assertion of Dahl et al. (2009) andLaTour (1990)  We concur with previous studies that male consumers demonstrate a positive reaction to opposite-gender nudity in print advertisements, with significant results across all four variables. Our results here are broadly in concurrence with those of previous studies which highlighted the positive influence of female nudity on male consumer reactions (e.g., Jones et al., 1998;Patzer, 1980;Reichert, LaTour, & Kim, 2007), and they indicate that marketers should use appropriate seminude female stimuli to influence male consumers' reactions, taking account of overall ad copy criteria.
However, marketers should be considerate when using opposite-gender seminude stimuli in print advertisements when targeting female consumers. Although feminism led to a strengthened embracement of females' own sexuality (Travis & White, 2000), the results of the present study clearly slide with majority of the previous studies that the use of seminude male stimuli still does not positively influence female consumer actions (Lanseng, 2016;Sabrina et al., 2018;P. M. Simpson et al., 1996) and do not concur with results of Putrevu (2008). Conceptually, this finding is in line with the well-established theory of differential plasticity (Baumeister, 2000) as well as findings of evolutionary psychologists and sociobiologists such as Baldwin and Baldwin (1997) and Greer and Buss (1994) highlighting the relative weakness of females' opposite-gender reactions as compared with those of males.
Surprisingly, we found significantly positive effects of seminude male stimuli on male consumers. Increased response ratios are not only observed for information search intention, positive attitude change, and integration of brand into evoked set, but there is also a positive influence on purchase decisions. The effects of same-gender nudity on male consumer reactions thus reveal a strong homophily rather than a homophobia effect, providing strong evidence against findings of previous studies (Baron, 1982;Sciglimpaglia et al., 1979;Thomas & Gierl, 2015). Similarly, female consumers show a very strong homophily effect, in line with Lazarsfeld and Merton (1954), by positively reacting to female seminude models across the five variables. Thus, our samegender results for female consumers concur with Reichert and Fosu (2005) as well as Wyllie et al. (2014) but contradict the findings of Dianoux and Linhart (2010). From a practical perspective, advertisers may prefer seminude female stimuli over male stimuli while targeting female consumers, given suitable ad settings.
This study has several limitations, being limited to print advertisements evaluated by German consumers. Different effects could emerge in different cultural and media settings: Future research could, for example, investigate the effects of nude or seminude stimuli in digital media settings. We purposefully did not discriminate between brands or product categories and their possible effects on nudity in print advertisements. In this regard, future studies could investigate moderating effects of either brands or product categories, especially the effect of consumers' product category involvement on their attitude and intention formation.
"Sex in advertising" constitutes a cluster of concepts: sex, sexual appeal, nudity, sexual suggestiveness, eroticism, and others. This article focuses on nudity which does not necessarily equate to erotic.
Nude and seminude stimuli containing depictions of couples were omitted from the analysis. The study also did not differentiate nudity across different levels or types of nudity. An in-depth inspection of real advertisements revealed only a few instances of completely nude models of either gender. With a larger data set of real advertisements, future studies could explore the model's attractiveness, the sexual orientation of the respondents, ethnicity, and brand familiarity as moderating variables affecting consumer reactions. We have provided the results separately for male and female respondents to disentangle the effects of opposite-gender and same-gender nudity on female and male consumers' reactions. Future studies that do not intend to look at cross-gender effects but either customer or model gender combined with study-specific moderators could use interaction effects estimation suitable to specific research settings.
Finally, we have to acknowledge that the paper assumes a very narrow perspective of advertising efficiency. Social or cultural concerns or what Pollay (1986) classifies as the "unintended social consequences of advertising" are beyond the scope of our analysis.
Practitioners and future researchers, however, need to overcome "moral myopia" (Drumwright, 1994) and recognize the unintended social consequences caused by advertising. Future research should therefore aim to align nudity in advertising with the design of responsible advertising messages.

CONFLICT OF INTERESTS
The authors declare that there are no conflict of interests.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
The data that support the findings of this study are available from Ad Impact Monitor, Germany. Restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for this study. Data are available with the permission of Ad Impact Monitor, Germany.

ETHICS STATEMENT
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the University of Hamburg and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.