A new study reveals that women are not happy with their representation in advertising

Women are fed up with the way the media portrays them and a recent study showed that 94% of women do not identify with their portrayal in ad campaigns, even though they make up 88% of consumer decisions . So why have marketing companies been so wrong?

Gone are the days when women were expected to stay home, tidy up toys, cook up a storm, and put on lipstick before their husbands came home from work, and yet advertising companies don’t seem to reflect this in their campaigns.

This is what Havas Media Group is trying to change in its project that surveyed 2,000 women in 20,000 different campaigns from 17 sectors. The results were pretty damning, women don’t feel much connection to the ads and in many cases are offended by them.

A closer examination of marketing campaigns reveals that 40% of advertising is sexist according to the Association of Communication Users (AUC).

Sexism in advertising takes many forms. You could be playing on gender stereotypes, hypersexualizing the female form, or portraying women in a demeaning light. The presence of ad campaigns that portray women in this way has become normalized and prevalent, fueling the male gaze that portrays women in a way that empowers men while objectifying and denigrating women.

While the purpose of brand marketing ads is to sell a product, the story behind the ad is also relevant and perhaps even more pervasive, since the viewer is not necessarily aware of the subliminal messages.

Sexist mishaps in advertising are not exclusively failures of corporate brands. During the covid-19 pandemic, the UK government ran an ad asking people to stay home, featuring women mopping, reading with the children and ironing while the man lounged on the sofa. The ad was quickly retracted after receiving significant backlash.

The current state of affairs is pretty bleak, but it’s not all doom and gloom. Obvious cases of sexism are rare, with 35% of creative media featuring women and men in interchangeable roles. The overt sexualization of the female body has also been significantly reduced, present in only 19% of campaigns.

Although women in ad campaigns are taking a more equal stance, diversity is still lacking.

Many women depicted in advertising conform to the ‘nice girl’ look, a term coined by Jane Cunningham and Philippa Roberts, who wrote the book. Brandsplaining: why marketing is (still) sexist and how to fix it. The term describes the prevailing image of women in the media: attractive, thin, generally white, passive and agreeable, probably married with children or destined for that life. Only 12% of ads show women who don’t fit that mold.

Since only 1 in 20 ads exclusively feature women, making sure they’re representative of the average woman shouldn’t be an impossible task. This latest research concludes that women do not want to be portrayed as ‘superwomen’ seen as holding important positions and a family or having above average appearance and that there should be a more natural approach to their portrayal, less appearance and glamour. and more reality.

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