Sex sells

Dallas Blog | Tom Pauken:

“Huntley Paton, the very able publisher of the Dallas Business Journal, has an excellent, lead editorial in this week's Dallas Business Journal on the Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau's campaign to 'woo the gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgendered' tourist market to Dallas. Entitled 'Selling Sex', Paton points out that the city's tax-funded agency is running a rather questionable ad effort aimed at that market.”

So, sex sells, eh? All those ads on television, in magazines, movies, on the Internet aren't all sexy just by coincidence, then? Who'd have thunk it?

Americans are forever complaining that government is inefficient, unproductive, customer-unfriendly, in short, not like private business. Now, when government finally begins to act like private businesses, some Americans seem to want government to be more like, well, churches.

I'm not in favor of government using sex to sell any more than I'm in favor of auto companies, beer makers and toothpaste manufacturers using sex to sell. But I understand why they do it. And I'm not going to say I'm the expert on how to sell a city or a state to attract the tourist and convention dollar. As long as it's not fraudulent or otherwise illegal for private businesses to do, I'm willing to consider letting government try it.

Nevertheless, I'm willing to cut a deal. Let's tell government not to even think of using this staple of modern marketing to sell the cities, counties and states they govern, and we'll all quit complaining when governments don't operate as effectively as private businesses do. But until then, I say we let the government marketers try to learn and borrow from their counterparts in the private sector.