SYNTHESIZING RESEARCH ON Gender Targeted Advertising

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The economic principles I used during my research where “People generally respond to incentives in predictable ways” and “Institutions are the ‘rule of the game’ that influence choices”. The research I did was to answer the question of how companies incentivise men and women differently through advertising.

The first thing I came upon during my research that also popped up in other articles I read where “Men will look at the primary message – ‘Buy this’ or ‘Shop here,’ for example – and respond. Women tend to evaluate the primary message but will then look for other clues: “If I buy this or shop here, I will be trendy,” for example”. This shows how men are stimulated mainly by the idea of a picture while women tend to look into what they are buying and do their research. I also found that while men are stimulated by an image, women are more stimulated by the words involved in an advertisement. I also saw in another article that women tend to connect more with their feelings shown in a study done, “Furthermore, Yarborough suggests that in women, the two spheres of their brain communicate better than those of men. Studies show that women pull in information from both halves. This allows women to give a more sophisticated emotional response.” This all connects back in time to when we weren’t such a built up civilization, “Men had to become the more aggressive hunters and compete with other men. They had to process information quickly, perhaps more quickly than the females. The converse of this is that women as gatherers had to mentally map in fine detail things like bushes, barriers and where they had stored food.” In easier terms, men take a quick glance, while women tend to look into things and not just absorb the bigger picture. Also through my research, a lot of sources that I came across told me the different ways women and men are portrayed with in advertisements. This includes, the credibility of men as authority figures while women tend to use the man. Along with that, it tended to discuss how women play the role of being dependent on another person, while men are independent; men are usually the bread winners and bring home the money and have a big business job, while the women stays home. These are the most prevalent things that I came across within my research. I did however do some more recent research of this day and age, because one could argue that things have changed and I will agree that they slightly have even though all of these things discussed are still very prevalent.

Next, I had found research on a more prevalent topic within the media, which is targeted ads on social media apps. I found studies on how people tended to perceive themselves a different way just because of what ads would pop up on their feed. I connected this to my topic in the sense that if an ad showing a gender bias, a person will believe that for example they’re meant to be a stay at home wife and clean and cook and look after the children. This could lead to people looking down upon themselves and may even cause some harm that was shown within advertisements with in the 70’s or 80’s. This is the new generations way of putting people in certain spots based on which ad pops up on their feed. In another direction, I also did some research on “femvertising” this is a new known way to build women up in advertising instead of the typical way it has been done in the past years where women have been diminished. In a study done online, “Fifty-two percent of the more than 600 women surveyed online nationally said they have bought a product because they liked how the ad for it portrayed women, and 71% of those surveyed said they believe brands should be held responsible for using their ads to promote positive messages to women and girls.” This type of advertisement has built a new community of building women up. This is the modern version of advertising for women and it is the step in the right direction. This movement mainly started with the #LikeAGirl advertisement. These two things connect to the idea of gender stereotype advertising.