Sex sells, even for sandwich shops

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People are decreasingly literate and increasingly desperate. Pair that reality with a fast food coupon, and you have modern advertisement.

For Jimmy John’s, sub sales are the goal of the beach read campaign accessed through its Summer Menu of Ultimate Temptation, or SMUT. Use a promo code to order one of the four items on this menu, and receive access to a “steamy audio book.” The deal is split into two parts: During the fourth week of June, customers were able to obtain the first part of an audiobook titled The Blade and the Brine, and during the first week of July, the second part.

This offer pops up when the app opens:

As an audiobook, there is no reading involved. And as a “smut” book, even less cognition. But the chain means to pique the appetite, not satiate it with good literature. Jimmy John’s wants to sell subs, and it knows that sexual temptation motivates people beyond their usual curiosities. That, and the deal is low-effort.

The campaign is pure exploitation from Jimmy John’s. It recognizes that the appetites are integrated and uses that condition without regard for the humanity of its customers. The chain plays to their base interests, convinces them to engage these interests, and plunges them deeper into immoral activity. There is a reason Jimmy John’s advertising is so coy and full of innuendo, and it stems from whatever is left of social manners.

At the same time, the ad is pretty unabashed. So Jimmy John’s falls right in with the rest of the media world, as the “sex sells” method has incredible precedent. Television commercials today find more and more leeway in terms of sexual content, while movies and shows crossed into pornography long ago. OnlyFans exists. Time eternal has seen attractive women, if modest for our standards, as the focal point of any given product’s persuasiveness.

No one needs evidence that we live in an unbridled society. Anyone in it, including Jimmy John’s marketing staff, knows as much firsthand — but if not, the fact that child-protective regulation against pornography is a real free speech issue is enough to confirm doubts. Likewise, the surge in searches for virtual private networks after PornHub became inaccessible in states such as Texas and Florida tells of people’s dependence on pornographic material.

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Fortunately, the VPN side of the story tells us that there are remnants of shame attached to the content, no matter how ubiquitous it is. That component will never fully disappear. Jimmy John’s, on the other hand, wants its temptations to be more comical than seductive. The audiobook seems full of sandwich-based puns and is narrated by middle-aged and non-heartthrob actor Walton Goggins. Its oddness is not just some unintended effect, but the brand. Jimmy John’s is doing its part, then, to reduce overt sexual exploitation to something as casual as a lunch break.

More than anything, the chain wants to gain repute as conversational and down-to-earth, consistent with the quirky, simple tone it usually strikes. As populist trends have lately shown, this is the way to win a loyal base. And as societal sensitivity to sex continues to flatten, Jimmy John’s won’t take a hit for its gross intrusion. That doesn’t mean we can’t condemn it.

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