3 Was Boots right to decide to drop its plans to enter this market? Why? It’s an interesting question for debate: does marketing encourage cultural change or does it just reflect what’s going on in society? The recent history of the market for sex toys perhaps suggests that there is a more complex synergy going on. In the early 1990s, against a backdrop of increasingly liberal attitudes towards sex, and an increasing proportion of independently minded working women, Jacqueline Gold took over as Chief Executive of Ann Summers, the UK’s largest chain of sex shops. At that time, sex shops were mainly dimly lit, seedy backstreet stores catering for male fantasies. Jacqueline Gold’s idea was to move away from that and target the female consumer who wouldn’t dream of going into a store like that. One of her first moves was to introduce party-based selling. A group of women are invited to someone’s house and the merchandise is explained, displayed and passed around in a spirit of fun, playfulness and girly giggles. The women tend to encourage each other to be more daring, buy things that they could not imagine asking for in a store and, perhaps subconsciously, to redefine their perception of what’s ‘normal’

or ‘acceptable’. Some 4000 Ann Summers parties now take place in the UK every week. In parallel with this, Ann Summers’ chain of ‘bricks and mortar’ stores is also expanding (currently there are over 120 stores in the UK). The stores are being revamped and brought out of the back streets to make them sexier (in a witty, playful way) and more female-friendly.