It’s true! Just look through any guitar magazine and you’ll see plenty of ads from guitar and gear manufacturers selling their products using girls in sexy clothing, bikinis, or less, all trying to get your eyes on their products. The question is, does it work?

Don’t get me wrong, I completely understand WHY companies do it. Who doesn’t want to spend a few extra moments checking out an almost-nude girl holding the latest tuner or guitar strap? They are no different than any other company out there peddling their goods by using beautiful women in their ads.

What I wonder, however, is whether or not the extra attention really works. Most of the time I couldn’t tell you what product was being advertised if you paid me. Perhaps I’m just an old, married horn dog not seeing the forest for the trees. Perhaps I’ve been playing guitar for so long that I have no need for the products being advertised anyway so I don’t bother to read what the ad copy (if any) says. Mostly, though, I just get annoyed that the manufacturers are so un-confident in their products that they resort to sticking a pretty model in their ad to get my interest.

Yes, global, over-saturated markets require advertising tricks in order to get noticed, I get it; really, I do. But I’m pretty sure I have never (and will never) buy a product I know nothing about just because a girl was in the ad. I have never been compelled to go to a company’s website or call them for a catalog because a bikini model was holding their latest guitar pick. How about telling me what the product actually does and why I should buy it. What makes your guitar pick so much more special than the competition’s guitar pick that I should consider checking it out? How will I ever know that your guitar strap is more comfortable if you don’t tell me so?

I have to be honest, I have never walked into a guitar store, looked at a guitar pick or guitar strap, and remembered that it was the same product a hottie in the magazine was selling. I have, however, hundreds of times gone to a company’s website or even driven down to the local guitar store to check out a product because they gave me information about the product that compelled me to learn more.

Take, for example, the new TC Electronic Poly Tune pedal. With all respect to TC Electronics, this isn’t exactly the sexiest product ever realized, cool as it might be. They have been taking out full-page ads in the guitar magazines recently talking about their product. No bikinis, no Janet Jackson nipple slips, no casually-seated emo chick trying to tune her guitar when it’s quite obvious from the way she’s posed that she’s never picked up a guitar before let alone tried to tune it.

What they did do, however, was give me information that I needed about the tuner. Their ad screams to me that they have developed a product I might want – a tuner that can tune polyphonically. Boobies don’t tell me that (much as I love ‘em).

Yes, I know, “Lighten up, dude. It’s just an ad.” But the point of the ad is to compel me to buy it, right? I’m here to tell the manufacturers that I’m not only compelled to not buy their product, but I’m also not compelled to remember anything about what they’re trying to sell.

My advice to companies advertising in the guitar magazines – don’t waste my time. I’ve been playing for too long and have seen way too many products in my day. I need concrete reasons to check your product out. I’m more likely to buy 5 of your guitar straps because they are comfortable for my bad back, but I’ll never know that because you never tell me! You assume the pretty girl in the ad is going to tell me. Guess what? She doesn’t!