How far will they go? There's a debate raging over whether Marks & Spencer - still eager to win back customers after sluggish sales - is poised to ditch its ultra-sensible adverts and try the sexy route to selling.

The company has brought in a new advertising agency to help pull them out of the doldrums, but will it go the way of many a company and use a little titillation to persuade us to buy?

It's worked for cars, with that couple cavorting in a Peugeot 306; for ice cream (whenever I see anyone putting Haagen Dazs in their supermarket trolley I always assume they've bought it to smear all over each other); for Diet Coke, with their hunky window cleaner; and the Gold Blend couple's will-they-won't-they affair kept viewers hanging on for years.

My guess is that in the future, the majority of companies will use sex as a marketing tool for their products. I've got some ideas, if those over-paid advertising executives run short:

n Walker's Crisps: Gary Lineker's quite a fit bloke, so why waste his obvious talents on a bunch of kids. Their ad campaign - where he pinches children's crisps - may be successful so far, but that too-good-to-be-true image won't keep viewers riveted for long. Let's have him steal a woman's clothing while she's skinny-dipping in a secluded bay. She gives chase and they frolic in the surf ... making the famous scene From Here to Eternity look tame. For added amusement, she is puzzled by a crunching sound from his shorts - it turns out to be a packet of crisps in his pocket, which turn to a soggy mush as they roll about in the waves.

n Oxo: The homely Oxo family have thankfully bored viewers with their last family meal. They were ditched this week because advertisers believe that home-cooked family dinners round the same table are outdated. A new campaign has not been decided, but I say let's have the family back - only mum should farm the kids off on grandma, ditch her sensible skirt and blouse and stick on a plunging halter-neck mini-dress to welcome her hubby when he returns home wet and miserable after a day's fishing. They'll ignore the casserole bubbling away on the Aga and get into a stew themselves on the mat in front of it.

n B&Q: Their slogan - "You Can Do It If You B&Q IT" is tailor-made for a series of sexy adverts. All you need is a loving couple and a self-assembly double bed. In common with most people who take one look at the instructions and realise they should have bought ready-made, they're on the point of divorce after assembling it. But they quickly make-up by testing it out. There's only one concern - with the DIY chain's policy of employing people aged over 60, and using them in their adverts, they'd better have some soft lights and a couple of packets of Viagra handy.

n Yellow Pages: I know it was amusing at first, but that girl discovering her neighbour's untidy flat and assuming he'd been burgled (resulting in him hiring a cleaner) is growing a bit stale. Let's turn the tables: have him pop round to her flat and find a mountain of skimpy undies spilling out of the laundry bin. When she tells him her washing machine is broken, he helps her look through the directory for a repairer - before they get into a lather themselves.

n Robinson's Barley Water: Why does this product need Wimbledon to come into its own? I can think of another sort of mixed doubles which can take place anywhere, anytime. And the participants usually need refreshment afterwards.

It won't be too difficult to eroticise those comfy jim-jams and slippers from M&S. I can't wait.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.