Ad stereotypes alienate women
Advertisers and agencies who fail to shed old prejudices, and won’t change their advertising ways, risk losing the female segment of the consumer market. John Shannon reports. John Shannon is president of Grey International
Recent studies conducted in the US and the UK offer good and bad news for advertisers trying to reach female consumers.
The good news is that in the US, after being subjected to a variety of social and economic challenges throughout the past eight years, women have regained their optimism and self-assurance.
Their rising economic confidence and a revitalised belief in the quality of brands represents a promising combination for advertisers.
The bad news is that while women, both in the US and the UK, feel positive about their own progress and achievements, they feel the opposite about the way many advertisers are talking to them.
The main complaint from American women is that too much advertising is boring and repetitious, that it never depicts home life accurately and that it stereotypes both women and men.
Only ten per cent of those interviewed feel advertising is doing a “very good” or “excellent” job.
Of a sample of 72 American prime-time commercials, women had speaking parts in only three, and did the voice-overs in only nine.
Some films showed working women as victims, tormented by internal conflict, while others either reinforced the domestic role of women or reflected an undercurrent of hostility towards men.
Dissatisfaction with much current advertising was equally strong in the UK, where it was seen as perpetuating old-fashioned stereotypes.
Of course, everyone can point to commercials that accurately reflect the way women see themselves, and a few agencies are taking pains to achieve this goal.
But I suspect that if one analysed a large group of European commercials, we would find similar concerns to those revealed by the UK and US studies.
In Germany, for example, there has been concern that in trying to move away from presenting women in the stereotypical “passive” role, advertisers have often over compensated by creating a new stereotype, that of the aggres sive, man-hating, “vengeful woman”.
The overall picture suggests that advertisers and their agencies still have some way to go in their efforts to reflect accurately the changes that women have made to their lives.
The communications industry should apply itself more diligently to understanding the complex challenges women deal with daily.
Advertisers and agencies which fail to shed old prejudices risk losing touch with a key segment of the consumer market who exercise an extremely wide influence on purchase decisions.
