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 the purpose 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 and pornography. 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 the analysis 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 the luxury 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 of