Babev­er­tis­ing has a long and sto­ried his­to­ry in the Super Bowl, includ­ing recent high­lights like Bar Refaeli smooching a nerd for GoDad­dy, Kate Upton blow­ing bub­bles for Mer­cedes, and Char­lotte McK­in­ney mak­ing puns for Carl’s Jr. But Super Bowl 50 was dif­fer­ent. In fact, there was a con­spic­u­ous absence of babes, oth­er than per­haps Helen Mir­ren, or Ryan Reynolds and Drake. Why?

Mirren’s rel­a­tive babe­wor­thi­ness is a debate for anoth­er time and place, but it is worth not­ing her Super Bowl debut came at an intrigu­ing cul­tur­al moment in the U.S.

Hillary For America

Amer­i­cans are clos­er to hav­ing a woman in the White House than they’ve ever been before. This has inspired plen­ty of debate about what it means to be a fem­i­nist and who women should vote for, which was prompt­ed in part by con­tro­ver­sial remarks from both Madeleine Albright, the first female sec­re­tary of state, and fem­i­nist icon Glo­ria Steinem.

But this cul­tur­al back­drop extends well beyond pol­i­tics to include major moments in sports, enter­tain­ment, and media – all with pow­er­ful, influ­en­tial women at their core.

Queen Bey

Look at Bey­on­cé, for exam­ple.

Knowles’ lat­est video, For­ma­tion, which debuted just a day before her Super Bowl 50 half­time show per­for­mance, has 29.1 mil­lion views on YouTube alone.

What’s more, Knowles arguably stole the show with her live per­for­mance, which, con­ve­nient­ly, was fol­lowed by a Super Bowl ad announc­ing her world tour – and even the lat­ter video has a respectable 1.4 mil­lion views.

Fur­ther, per social media ana­lyt­ics tool Talk­walk­er, #For­ma­tion has been used near­ly 503,000 times since Feb­ru­ary 7.

As an addi­tion­al tes­ta­ment to Knowles’ pow­er, the polit­i­cal, cul­tur­al and social themes in For­ma­tion were the sub­ject of analy­sis in the New York Times.

Even though her Super Bowl per­for­mance incit­ed con­tro­ver­sy, the reac­tion includ­ed an anti-Bey­on­cé ral­ly the New York Post called “the worst attend­ed protest ever,” in which one of rough­ly five pro­test­ers saw his sign dam­aged in the rain “because he for­got to lam­i­nate it.”

Per­haps the real kick­er is that one of the song’s most mem­o­rable lyrics was enough to dri­ve sales up 33 per­cent at Red Lob­ster on Super Bowl Sun­day ver­sus the year-ago peri­od and the brand says it was a trend­ing top­ic on Twit­ter for the first time ever, as well as the sub­ject of more than 300,000 tweets over Super Bowl week­end – includ­ing 42,000 men­tions in a sin­gle hour on Feb­ru­ary 6.

Shake It Off

Then there’s crossover dar­ling Tay­lor Swift, who is undoubt­ed­ly the pub­lic vic­tor in her lat­est spat with rap­per and Kar­dashi­an spouse Kanye West.

West’s new song “Famous” includes a line in which he claims cred­it for Swift’s fame, pre­sum­ably after the unfor­get­table moment when he inter­rupt­ed her accep­tance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards when she best­ed, fun­ny enough, Bey­on­cé.

Accord­ing to reports, Swift’s rep said Swift declined to pro­mote the song and “cau­tioned [West] about releas­ing a song with such a strong misog­y­nis­tic mes­sage.”

Swift lat­er took full advan­tage of the oppor­tu­ni­ty afford­ed her at the Gram­mys to deliv­er a wide­ly laud­ed accep­tance speech in which she remind­ed young women not to let any­one under­cut their suc­cess or take cred­it for their accom­plish­ments.

‘Beauty Doesn’t Take Just One Form’

What’s more, the Sports Illus­trat­ed Swim­suit Edi­tion, one of our nation’s most beloved annu­al tra­di­tions, amend­ed its tried-and-true 51-year for­mu­la this year to include three cov­er mod­els because “beau­ty doesn’t take just one form.”

Regard­less of how true this actu­al­ly rings, one cov­er girl, Ash­ley Gra­ham, is the first plus-size mod­el to grace its front page, and anoth­er, Ron­da Rousey, is per­haps best known for her arm­bar sub­mis­sion with­in the Octa­gon or her turn as a body­guard for the Bud Light Par­ty.

In addi­tion, 2016 also marks the year “mature mod­el” Nico­la Grif­fin became the old­est woman to appear in the Swim­suit Edi­tion in a cam­paign for curvy swim­suit retail­er swim­suits­forall.

Also, self-pro­claimed fash­ion doll Bar­bie, which, inter­est­ing­ly enough, is just one year old­er than Grif­fin at 57, also recent­ly made head­lines for adding three new body types.

“We are excit­ed to lit­er­al­ly be chang­ing the face of the brand – these new dolls rep­re­sent a line that is more reflec­tive of the world girls see around them – the vari­ety in body type, skin tones and style allows girls to find a doll that speaks to them,” said Eve­lyn Maz­zoc­co, senior vice pres­i­dent and glob­al gen­er­al man­ag­er of Bar­bie, in a release.

Babevertising 2.0

It’s this state­ment about the world con­sumers see around them that is per­haps the best lens through which to view the future of sex in adver­tis­ing.

Per Rebec­ca Brooks, a founder of Alter Agents Mar­ket Research, we are at a turn­ing point for women in Amer­i­can cul­ture in part because women are chang­ing the con­ver­sa­tion about them­selves.

“Women are now in more lead­er­ship posi­tions in media, mar­ket­ing and brand­ing. They are bring­ing a new per­spec­tive. There is also a resur­gence of feminists…[And New York Mag­a­zine] just announced on its cov­er page that sin­gle women are the most impor­tant vot­ing block in this next elec­tion. Women are front and cen­ter.”

This means babev­er­tis­ing is wan­ing, Brooks said.

But those coveted/dreaded Mil­len­ni­als are also a dri­ving force.

Whatever Millennials Want

Aure­lie Guer­ri­eri, co-pres­i­dent of Women in Wire­less, a non­prof­it that says it “empow­ers and devel­ops female lead­ers in mobile and dig­i­tal media,” notes younger con­sumers are more aware of diver­si­ty and expect brands to under­stand and rep­re­sent them, mean­ing babes don’t res­onate. “

Adver­tis­ers who can cap­i­tal­ize on this and turn the myth on its head, [like Willem Dafoe as Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe for Snick­ers] project a much edgi­er, fresh­er image and are able to con­nect with a wider swath of the audi­ence,” she said.

To wit, per­haps: Snick­ers’ 2016 Super Bowl spot came in at #16 in USA Today’s Ad Meter.

“I think we are enter­ing a cul­tur­al moment where soci­ety is cel­e­brat­ing the indi­vid­ual,” said Rosie Garschi­na, asso­ciate cre­ative direc­tor at cre­ative stu­dio Troll­back + Com­pa­ny. “Images that we iden­ti­fy as pow­er­ful and beau­ti­ful are no longer defined by gen­der, race or ori­en­ta­tion. Younger gen­er­a­tions are not inter­est­ed in social norms, but rather equal­i­ty, inclu­siv­i­ty and what makes us unique as indi­vid­u­als. Adver­tis­ing is embrac­ing this move­ment.”

Emi­ly McIn­er­ney, the oth­er co-pres­i­dent of Women in Wire­less, agrees there has been a shift in per­cep­tions of beau­ty, which was in part pio­neered by Dove in its Real Beau­ty cam­paign.

Always’ recent Girl Emo­jis video, which is an exten­sion of its larg­er #LikeA­Girl effort and seeks to empow­er girls to ask for emo­jis that bet­ter reflect them­selves, is anoth­er good exam­ple.

“Now more than ever, brands are lis­ten­ing to the fact that cus­tomers want to see faces and bod­ies that they can relate to,” McIn­er­ney said. “Even the biggest babe of them all, Bar­bie, got a body makeover. If that is not telling of the times, I don’t know what is.”

Girls, Girls, Girls

In addi­tion, brands are cater­ing more to grow­ing female audi­ences for events like the Super Bowl and cre­at­ing con­tent specif­i­cal­ly for them, Guer­ri­eri said.

That includes Hyundai’s Ryanville spot, which ranked #5 in Ad Meter this year and arguably objec­ti­fied one-time Sex­i­est Man Alive Ryan Reynolds.

Jes­si­ca Thiele, mar­ket­ing man­ag­er of data inte­gra­tion ser­vices provider Vir­tu­al Logis­tics, also observes that in many house­holds, women tend to do most of the shop­ping and there­fore have buy­ing pow­er, so even brands with male tar­gets may be com­ing to real­ize they can reach their mar­ket by appeal­ing to women.

‘We’ve Seen It Already’

Fur­ther, over­sat­u­ra­tion may be to blame for the demise of babev­er­tis­ing.

“The shock val­ue of scant­i­ly clad women and sexy innu­en­dos has lost its impact,” Brooks said. “Adver­tis­ers are talk­ing to a gen­er­a­tion that grew up with cable tele­vi­sion and the Inter­net. We’ve seen it already. Brands are real­iz­ing that they have to move past tit­il­la­tion to get atten­tion.”

Daniela Cuevas, cre­ative direc­tor at dig­i­tal and social agency The Spark Group, agrees babes just don’t cut through the noise any­more.

“At this point, we’re desen­si­tized to those types of com­mer­cials and they’re no longer effec­tive,” she said. “They are not shock-wor­thy to us any­more, espe­cial­ly these days where every­one is naked on tele­vi­sion.”

For her part, Paige Arnof-Fenn, CEO of mar­ket­ing con­sult­ing firm Mavens and Moguls, points to a recent and notable shift in adult enter­tain­ment.

“Look at Play­boy. When it start­ed, it was a bit racy and scan­dalous and now they do not even have nudi­ty. And guess what: their adver­tis­ing has increased,” she said. “Maybe it is Mil­len­ni­als, maybe it is our 24/7 online cul­ture, but there just has to be more than a naked or biki­ni-clad woman in an ad to get atten­tion these days. “

Treading Lightly

Brands may also shy away from sex in adver­tis­ing over back­lash fears.

In oth­er words, promi­nent nation­al dis­course includes threads about fem­i­nism and body image and some mar­keters say babev­er­tis­ing is tak­ing a hit as a result.

Thiele notes even brands like Dove, which have attempt­ed to incor­po­rate these move­ments, have come under fire for their efforts, which may be per­ceived as hol­low.

How­ev­er, an unin­tend­ed con­se­quence may be more cre­ativ­i­ty among mar­keters look­ing for alter­na­tives.

“Brands don’t want that type of neg­a­tive back­lash, so I believe this has forced some brands to put on their think­ing caps and cre­ate dif­fer­ent types of effec­tive ads,” Cuevas said. “There will be those brands that won’t care and will [use] babev­er­tis­ing, but I believe times have changed.”

Per Arnof-Fenn, we cer­tain­ly haven’t seen the end of objec­ti­fi­ca­tion in adver­tis­ing – “not a chance” – but, she said, “I do think [Budweiser’s Helen Mir­ren spot] will encour­age oth­er brands be more cre­ative and take risks going for­ward.”

‘Marketing’s Dirty Little Secret’

Or, as Brooks puts is, while sex will always be a part of adver­tis­ing, in a way, babev­er­tis­ing is grow­ing up.

“I [would say it’s] matur­ing from appeal­ing to 14-year-old boys to appeal­ing to savvy adults,” she said.

And Thiele con­cedes many con­sumers actu­al­ly like babev­er­tis­ing, which is anoth­er rea­son it will nev­er dis­ap­pear com­plete­ly.

“I think what’s hap­pen­ing with babev­er­tis­ing is instead it’s going online. Tar­get­ed ads, brands on social media, etc.,” Thiele said. “Babev­er­tis­ing today is almost trans­form­ing into mar­ket­ing’s dirty lit­tle secret — it still works on cer­tain tar­get demo­graph­ics, but to avoid the media back­lash, it’s gone under­ground.”

Do you think sex has lost its main­stream mar­ket­ing pow­er for good?