“Does sex sell?”- the questions that researchers have been attempting to answer for ages. Despite the mixed findings, the assumption that “sex sells” appears to be taken for granted in advertising, and social media advertisings are no exception. This study presents the effects of sexualized images of female influencers on the sponsored advertising on Instagram based on the basic human motivational activation and higher cognitive orders that interact with it. The results showed that sexualized images of influencers negatively affect the evaluation of the influencer, which in turn affects attitude towards the ad and behavioral intention negatively. Although there was little influence found on motivational activation, this study adds understanding of how the sexualized images of influencers affect the overall ad effectiveness and performance.