Gender portrayals revisited: searching for explicit and implicit stereotypes in Cypriot magazine advertisements

The study pursues a line of inquiry into contemporary gender stereotypes drawn from print advertisements in Cyprus. The investigation of implicit modes of stereotyping suggested by Goffman across explicit gender roles yield novel and interesting insights that broaden existing knowledge on male and female advertising depictions. Through a content analysis of 3.729 characters, the study reveals the existence of gender clichés in Cypriot magazine advertisements. Neither male nor female evolving roles are adequately reflected in advertisements, as men tend to be portrayed in traditional masculine stereotypes while women lean towards decorative portrayals. Implicit stereotyping is more likely to suggest the subordination and lower status of women compared to men. The study indicates that advertising in Cyprus reinforces the diffusion of hostile sexism by the underrepresentation of professional women and their commonplace portrayal in body revealing attires. At the same time, the high proportion of women's implicit subordination signifies benevolent sexism. The distorted representation of both genders raises key public policy concerns, as diminishing portrayals hold sway upon men's and women's psychological well-being and professional development.     

Impacts of advertisements that are unfriendly to women and men

Taking Belgium as a case in point, this study analyses, first, tolerance for advertisements unfriendly to women and men as expressed by advertising and marketing professionals, consumers and gender equal opportunity workers. Second, it compares which types of unequal gender portrayal raise concerns with which sector of respondents. Finally, it analyses the differences in adherence of the three sectors to the two main policy solution paradigms proposed in the 2008 European Parliament Resolution on ‘How marketing and advertising affect equality between women and men’. Results suggest a degree of tolerance that varies significantly according to sector, language, gender and age. Overall, respondents express more concerns regarding traditional sex roles in advertising than regarding nudity, unattainable beauty standards or gender stereotypes, and prefer gender-and-advertising literacy programmes and awards for advertisements that break through gender stereotypes over stricter ethical and/or legal regulations. These findings should prove useful to advertising and marketing professionals, national advertising regulatory bodies and policy makers.     

Gender Roles and Humor in Advertising: The Occurrence of Stereotyping in Humorous and Nonhumorous Advertising and Its Consequences for Advertising Effectiveness

The advertising literature includes extensive research on the occurrence and effects of gender-role portrayals in advertising. None of these studies has examined the ways in which humor affects depictions and the advertising effectiveness of these portrayals. This article reports the results of content-analytic and experimental studies that investigate the occurrence and effectiveness of gender stereotyping in humorous and nonhumorous advertising. The findings from these studies are in line with the assumptions of information processing theories. They indicate that the way women and men are stereotyped in advertising is dependent on humor; in particular, traditional male stereotypes are more prevalent in humorous ads, whereas traditional female stereotypes are more prevalent in nonhumorous ads. With respect to the influence of these stereotypes, humor improves consumers’ attitudes, particularly if nontraditional stereotyping is utilized instead of traditional stereotyping. Furthermore, humor in stereotyped advertising influences women more than men. Women evaluate gender portrayals more favorably and as more credible in humorous ads than in nonhumorous ads, particularly when nontraditional stereotyping instead of traditional stereotypes are used. These findings provide implications for gender-role and humor research in advertising and for practitioners who wish to increase the effectiveness of ads that use stereotypes.     

Book Reviews

This study examines community attitudes of Australians towards gender portrayal in advertising. Despite some well-publicised cases involving sexually provocative billboards, we find that gender portrayal in advertising is not of major concern to many Australians. We also examined the relationship between attitudes to gender portrayal and Arnott's (1972) Female Autonomy Inventory, a measure of feminist consciousness. Ford and LaTour (1996) tested a model of attitudes toward gender portrayal in advertising that found an unambiguous relationship between attitudes to female autonomy and the perceived offensiveness of the portrayal of women in advertisements. Our study, in contrast, suggests that the relationship is more complex. While one group of high female autonomy respondents (that we labeled "Feminist Pessimists") rated the offensiveness of the portrayal of women in advertising very highly, another high female autonomy group (labeled "Feminist Optimists") did not. Hence regulatory bodies may treat complaints on stereotyping in advertisements from these groups in different ways and advertisers may modify their messages for maximum effect. Differences in the findings between this study and Ford and LaTour's are discussed.     

Gender stereotypes in television advertising in the Middle East: Time for marketers and advertisers to step up

Gender stereotypes, which are particularly harmful to women, have historically been prevalent in advertising, prompting some governments and brands to regulate conventional gender portrayals. This study examines current gender portrayals in television advertising in the Middle East, and specifically in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), because of the increasing importance accorded to women’s empowerment in some of these countries. Building on similar studies elsewhere, we analyze the content of 111 distinct television advertisements aired over a week by a major TV channel in the region. Our analysis reveals that while depictions of certain aspects, such as role (familial/nonfamilial) and location (home/occupational setting), gently nudged traditional stereotypes by portraying women in nonfamilial roles and in occupational settings, depictions of background (female/male/children) and product type further reinforced traditional stereotypes. Based on these findings, we offer specific recommendations to marketers and advertisers in the region.     

A longitudinal content analysis of gender role portrayal in Belgian television advertising

This study explores gender role portrayal in advertisements broadcasted on Belgian commercial television. We gathered a sample of 493 commercials (featuring 907 characters) randomly selected out of two periods (January 2002–April 2003, n = 250 and January 2009–April 2010, n = 243) from a database containing all advertisements broadcasted on Belgian commercial television. A content analysis was carried out using a coding scheme based on existing literature. Content categories included gender of the characters, gender roles (i.e. parental, housekeeping and professional expert) and sexual objectification. Hypotheses predicted that men and women would be represented differently in television advertising, and that these differences would reflect traditional gender stereotypes. Moreover, due to regulatory changes, we hypothesize that these differences should decrease over time. Results are largely in accordance with the existing literature. Women tend to be depicted as younger and are portrayed more often within dependent roles as caregiving parent, housewife or as sexual objects than men. A longitudinal analysis of role portrayal changes across two periods within and between genders indicates little change in gender role portrayals in Belgian television advertising between 2002–2003 and 2009–2010. Despite social and regulatory changes, gender stereotypes in advertising seem to persist over time.     

Caring for her: the influence of presumed influence on female consumers’ attitudes towards advertising featuring gender-stereotyped portrayals

ABSTRACT

This study investigates how presumed influence on others affects women's evaluations of advertising featuring gender stereotypes. Previous research has largely overlooked the social context of the reactions to gender stereotypes. Addressing that gap, this study draws on the influence of presumed influence model to proposed that female consumers believe that other women are negatively affected by advertising that contains gender-stereotyped portrayals. This perception is hypothesized to influence ad and brand attitudes as consumers ‘punish’ the brand for hurting others. The results of two experimental studies featuring stereotyped and non-stereotyped advertising portrayals indicate that the hypothesis holds for two types of stereotype components (physical characteristics and role behaviour). This new theoretical perspective to the literature on gender stereotypes in advertising, one that helps to explain why many women dislike gender stereotypes in advertising even though those stereotypes often have limited impact on them personally.     

Ethics in Food Advertising to Children in India—A Parental Perspective

Marketers are seen to bombard children with advertisements for unhealthy foods using sophisticated promotion techniques that have serious negative effects on health and overall well-being of children. So parents try to mediate children’s exposure to media content and call for governmental regulations in an attempt to shield them. The extent to which they mediate further determines whether they contemplate food advertisements as being ethical or unethical. Therefore, the present study tries to uncover the antecedents to ethical versus unethical perceptions of Indian parents about food advertisements directed at children. No study, to the best of the researchers’ knowledge, has been conducted so far in India in this regard. Using binary logistic regression with mothers, it is found that the mothers who view food advertisements as unethical report their children to watch fewer hours of TV during weekdays and hold negative attitudes toward advertising to children. These mothers, however, do not feel that the government needs to impose restrictions on food advertisements aired on TV since they themselves indulge in mediation of TV advertising as a general parenting responsibility. The implications of the article are finally discussed.     

Does Sex Sell in a Chinese Society

Sexual appeal was once was regarded as panacea in advertising. Research findings in western countries regarding sexu- ally explicit advertising generally have divergent views-positive and negative advertising effects. Published findings indicate advertise- ments that employ sex appeals are attention-getting and result in better brand recall, while on the contrary, these advertisements are viewed as offensive and creating negative attitudes and behavioural intentions. The use of sex in advertising is a complex issue. The gender of the model, the gender of the receivers, the product adver- tised, the culture background of the market etc. will have an impact on the effectiveness of advertising. The present study focuses on the relationship between sexually explicit advertisements in Hong Kong and the advertising effectiveness, in the form of recall, attitude and purchase intention.     

Children's Understanding of TV Advertising: Effects of Age, Gender, and Parental Influence

Parents, consumer organizations, and policy makers are generally concerned about effects of TV advertising directed towards children. These effects might be mediated by children's understanding of TV advertising, that is their ability to distinguish between TV programmes and commercials and their comprehension of advertising intent. In this paper, we investigate children's understanding of TV advertising, using verbal and non-verbal measurements. The sample consists of 153 Dutch children, ranging from 5 to 8 years old, and their parents. The results based on non-verbal measures suggest that most children are able to distinguish commercials from programmes and that they have some insight into advertising intent. The results based on verbal measures are not as conclusive; the percentage of children who show understanding of TV advertising is then substantially lower. Effects of age, gender, and parental influence are assessed using MURALS, a regression analysis technique for categorical and continuous variables, and CHAID, a technique for identifying homogeneous segments on the basis of the relationship between categorical dependent and explanatory variables. The age of a child turns out to have a positive effect. The effects of gender and parent- child interaction are rather small, both for verbal and for non-verbal measures of understanding of TV advertising. A high level of parental control of TV viewing may result in lower understanding of TV advertising. Implications for consumer policy and directions for future research are discussed.     

Is the Marlboro man the only alternative? The role of gender identity and self-construal salience in evaluations of male models

This research examines how men react to male models in print advertisements. In two experiments, we show that the gender identity of men influences their responses to advertisements featuring a masculine, feminine, or androgynous male model. In addition, we explore the extent to which men feel they will be classified by others as similar to the model as a mechanism for these effects. Specifically, masculine men respond most favorably to masculine models and are negative toward feminine models. In contrast, feminine men prefer feminine models when their private self is salient. Yet in a collective context, they prefer masculine models. These experiments shed light on how gender identity and self-construal influence male evaluations and illustrate the social pressure on men to endorse traditional masculine portrayals. We also present implications for advertising practice.     

Advertising Ethics: The Use of Sexual Appeal in Chinese Advertising

With increasing social awareness of unethical advertisements in today's advertising, this study explores consumers' ethical judgements about the use of sexual appeals in advertising in a Chinese context by replicating LaTour and Henthorne's study. It specifically focuses upon responses on the Reidenbach-Robin multidimensional ethical scale, attitude toward the ad, attitude toward the brand and purchase intentions. The results show that sexual appeal was evaluated as the most frequent use in Hong Kong print advertising and they were also perceived as the most attractive instrument. Similar to LeTour and Henthorne's findings, regardless of respondent's gender, the use of a strong overt sexual appeal was not well received by Chinese consumers and resulted in less favorable attitude toward the ad itself and the purchase intention than using mild sexual themes. However, the degree of sexual content used in advertising has no direct influence on brand attitudes. Due to the conservative nature of Chinese culture, the advertisers should be careful in the use of sexual appeal for Chinese consumers.     

The effect and moderation of gender identity congruity: Utilizing “real women” advertising images

The present article examines the predictive ability of gender identity congruity in explaining women's responses to advertising appeals. The contributions of the article are twofold: (1) to demonstrate whether advertisements that are congruent with female consumers' gender identities elicit strong positive responses and (2) to identify the factors that moderate/mediate the impact of gender identity congruity on consumer responses to advertisements. The research findings provide evidence of the ability of gender identity congruity to elicit positive responses to advertising appeals. The relationship between gender identity congruity and responses to the advertisement is mediated by advertising involvement. The moderating roles of national culture, physical concern, and physical view are also supported. Overall, the congruity theory provides a powerful framework to examine consumer responses to gender portrayals in advertising. ©2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Stereotypical or just typical: how do US practitioners view the role and function of gender stereotypes in advertisements?

There is a long and diverse literature on gender stereotypes in advertising; however, US practitioners’ perspectives on the role and function of stereotypes in advertising remain unknown. Understanding professionals’ views on whether and how stereotypes communicate is important for anyone who believes it beneficial to reduce future stereotypical representations. Using qualitative interviews with 42 practitioners, this study detailed seven themes concerning professionals’ perceptions of the role and function of stereotypes in advertising, including beliefs that stereotypes are based in truth, are attractive to audiences, communicate quickly, simplify processing, prevent distraction, prevent thinking, and are the obvious solution. Practitioners felt stereotypes were used most appropriately when they were subverted or challenged in advertising messages. Stereotypes were most inappropriate when they reinforced negative perceptions. Four factors believed to drive the use of stereotypes in advertising are discussed.     

Investigating the Drivers of Consumer Acceptance and Response of SMS Advertising

This study tests five potential drivers underlying the acceptance of SMS advertising. After developing a scale to measure behavioral responses to SMS advertising, the relationships between the acceptance of SMS advertising, intention to receive SMS advertising and behavioral responses to SMS advertising are tested. A convenience sampling method was employed. Survey questionnaires were distributed across Western Australia. The return yielded 203 usable questionnaires from the respondents. Several factors emerge as significant drivers of acceptance of SMS advertising including utility of SMS advertisements, context of SMS advertisements and attitudes to advertising in general. Contrary to expectation, control over SMS advertisements did not emerge as a significant driver for acceptance of SMS advertising. Trust in advertisers and laws did not emerge as a significant driver of the acceptance of SMS advertising among Australian respondents. Advertisers who pursue consumer acceptance should strive to build utility and context considerations into their SMS campaigns. Future research opportunities include testing the drivers of SMS advertising to further investigate the impact of control and trust on acceptance of SMS advertising in other countries where the SMS advertising has not been explored yet.     

Urban Perceptions of Print Advertisements in the Indian Subcontinent:

This exploratory research investigates the relationship between the degree of westernization of urban consumers in India and their perceptions toward American origin print advertisements versus print advertisements of Indian origin of the same products. The study also explores the relationship between the advertising perceptions and the behavioral intention to buy the advertised product. The results indicate that the educated, middle-class, urban respondents, irrespective of their degree of westernization, seem to like both the Indian as well as the American advertisements. The findings seem to favor the case of standardization of advertising messages. The results also indicate that there is a positive relationship between the attitude towards the advertisement (Aad) and the behavioral intention to buy (BIB) the advertised product.     

Gender Role Portrayals in Japanese Advertising: A Magazine Content Analysis

Abstract

The authors report a content analysis that assessed gender role portrayals in advertisements from highest circulation Japanese magazines. They found that, although some indigenous gender stereotyping was evident, several traits previously associated with Japanese women (devoted, obliging, rattle-brained, superstitious, thorough) were associated with men. Also, men were not linked with certain stereotypical male traits (autocratic, blustery, forgiving, generous, severe). Other findings included women being shown in a positive way as often as men. In terms of common international stereotypes, women were not associated with low priced products or portrayed as being more deferential than men. However, women still were portrayed as more concerned with appearance and as younger than men, were not depicted as product authorities, and were shown more often in sexist than in nonsexist depictions.     

A longitudinal analysis of the changing roles of gender in advertising: a content analysis of Super Bowl commercials

Although the prevalence of gender stereotypes in advertising is well established, relatively little research has examined gender stereotypes in the context of Super Bowl that is arguably the most important event in US television advertising. This study systematically examines gender representations across various product categories in Super Bowl commercials over a 20-year period (1990–2009). Our findings detect and discuss shifts in the cultural notions of gender constructed in advertising messages targeting the largest and the most demographically diverse audience in US television. The paper concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and managerial implications of our findings.     

Comments

Standardisation of international advertising campaigns and relaxed advertising regulations have led to Australian consumers being exposed to higher levels of foreign-produced advertising. The study described here assessed the impact on Australian consumers of foreign spokespersons in TV advertisements using a ‘voice-over’ technique. This technique was assessed with respect to the following characteristics: expertise, trustworthiness, professionalism, likeability, dynamism, similarity to the audience, and their overall attitude towards the advertisement Subjects evaluated either American, British or Australian spokespersons. American and British spokespersons were rated less favourably by Australian audiences than Australian spokespersons across a range of characteristics, but they did not report a less favourable overall attitude towards advertisements that used an American or British spokesperson compared to those with an Australian spokesperson. Hence, the results tend to support the trend towards standardised advertising campaigns. However, since award-winning advertisements were used, other factors that may influence overall attitude, such as message content and creative execution, may have reduced the impact of the negative source evaluations in this case. Further research is required. Yet, in the light of more favourable evaluations of Australian spokespersons, overseas firms promoting products in Australia with Voice-over' advertisements may consider using an Australian spokesperson.     

The fashion engagement grid: understanding men's responses to fashion advertising

This study examines how men who are interested in fashion interpret fashion advertisements. Data are garnered from interviews with adult men who regularly read fashion magazines and buy fashion clothing. Findings reveal that men process fashion advertisements through the same five modes as women. The current study also demonstrates that men's responses to fashion advertisements can be categorized through the Fashion Engagement Grid which examines men's characterizations of and motivations for fashion behavior. This study expands theoretical understandings of gender in advertising research and recommends advertising elements to attract male consumers.