Hasta La Creative!

Advertising lore would have us believe that attractive women are the key to getting either gender to linger longer on your ad. But in digital, could it be that the male crotch is actually the key to click-through gold?

"Time and again, close-up shots of male crotches came up victorious, by a sizable margin," online retailer Betabrand says of the recent ad test for its Dress Pant Sweatpants. 

Betabrand tested 30 images of the pants on Facebook and Twitter, and each time, the crotch shown above rose to the occasion. (You can see some of the alternative shots of the pants on their site.)

In the Facebook promotion/ad test, the retailer says its photo of an iPad near a man's crotch yielded:
• 28,000 free site visits as a result of shares
• 64 percent more engagement (shares, likes, follows)
• 60 percent more on-site email signups
• 30 percent more clicks for the dollar
• 20 percent more purchases

Continuing the test with photo posts on Twitter, the brand says that yet again "King Crotch delivered." 

• 4 times the purchases
• 1.5 times the number of Retweets
• 78 percent more followers as a result of tweets
• 67 percent more Favorites

 "For better or worse, it's a brave new world of advertising, where clicks guide a brand's identity," says Betabrand founder Chris Lindland. "For now, ours appears to be squarely focused below the belt."

Will other brands catch on? If so, apologies in advance about your Facebook news feed.