Marketing Communications

562 CHAPTER 16 ETHICAL ISSUES IN MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS

to men.^20 Lin studied stereotyping (role portraying) in Taiwanese ads featuring female

models. Th e results showed that in domestic magazines the classical ‘girl next door’ role

appeared to be very acceptable. Th is can be attributed to conservative Confucian beliefs about

women’s role in society. However, trendy role models resulted in the highest preference in

foreign magazines. Th is can be explained by the fact that these magazines are read by women

with higher levels of education and by women’s increasing participation in the labour force.

Th ese results indicate that stereotyping is perceived diff erently by diff erent consumers. It also

suggests that advertising both refl ects and determines and shapes culture.^21

Advertising practitioners make use of stereotyping to quickly transfer the essential meaning of their messages. One

of the stereotypes frequently used in advertising is gender stereotyping. ‘Gender’ refers to the personal appearance,

personality attributes and socio-sexual roles that society understands to be ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’.^22 For example,

women are often stereotyped as dependent on or subservient to men, as preoccupied with physical attractiveness,

as sex objects, etc.^23 Women are generally depicted as younger and thinner than men, and they are often repre-

sented as caretaking mothers or housewives.^24 Women act as product users rather than experts and are often

portrayed as passive and dependent on their male counterparts.^25 Female characters occupy a more inactive, deco-

rative role that is subordinate to that of the male character or voice.^26 They are also more likely to be portrayed in

sexually appealing roles than men^27 and even serve as rewards to men for using a certain product.^28 Men, on the

other hand, are portrayed as older, less often married and more experienced. They are more often represented as

spokespeople or experts, meaning advertisers tend to put men in an autonomous, authoritarian and independent

role.^29

A Belgian study^30 set out to see whether gender role depiction in Belgian TV advertising has evolved over time,

in accordance with prevailing regulation. The largest commercial TV network in Belgium provided a database

containing all televised ads broadcast on Belgian commercial TV since 2002. From this database, commercials

from two periods (i.e. January 2002 to April 2003 and January 2009 to April 2010) were randomly selected.

Commercials of less than 15 seconds, commercials containing no adult characters, and movie trailers were omitted.

Only characters playing a prominent role (being shown for at least three seconds) were coded. The total sample

resulting from this procedure consisted of 493 TV commercials, 250 from the first period and 243 from the second

period. In these commercials, 907 main characters were coded for analyses.

Of the 907 coded models, 47% were female and 53% were male. Both men (50%) and especially women (71%)

were mostly presented as young and least in the older age category (11% of men, 8% of woman). Men (39%)

appeared more frequently as middle-aged than women (21%). Women (19%) were depicted significantly more

often as using the product than men (11%). Women (20%) are significantly more frequently depicted as sexual

objects than men (5%). Almost half (44%) of the women in the ads were shown in a domestic setting, while this

occurred significantly less frequently for men (30%). Men (27%), by contrast, are proportionally more frequently

portrayed in a professional context than women (9%). Out of the 907 registered models a total of 129 were

depicted in a working situation. This total entails 97 male characters and 32 female characters. Within the work-

place, the majority of men (55%) are shown as interpreting a superior role, while women are most often shown in

a subordinate role (57%). Men and women are also portrayed significantly differently in their roles within a family

setting. Women (17%) are also more often depicted in a parental role than men (11%). Only 1% of the men in the

ads are performing household chores, while this percentage is significantly higher for women (12%). When women

are shown in a family context, they are vastly portrayed as dominant within the family (90%), while this is only the

case for 25% of the men shown in a family context. Almost all (99%) women and the majority of men (66%) were

rated as ‘not muscular’. Men were coded significantly more often as ‘slightly muscular’ (27%) or ‘strongly muscular’

RESEARCH INSIGHT

Gender role stereotypes in Belgian TV advertising

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