Sex At the time, the sensual nature of the campaign caused a stir. Today, it is regarded as one of the earliest examples of an ad that followed that old marketing adage: sex sells. This was more than a cheap sales tactic, however. Beneath the surface, Sexual something more revolutionary was going on. Woodbury’s target audience was predominantly housewives. Written by J Walter Thompson’s Helen Lansdowne Resor, believed to be the first female copywriter in the US, the campaign was pioneering, because it shifted the lens from men’s sexual pleasure to women’s desire.