Advertising based on gender stereotypes attracts everyone’s attention at once. However, advertisers do not always realize how much damage this can cause to the company’s image. Is this ad still relevant today? Let’s figure it out with an expert.
Society at different ends of the globe is developing unevenly: each individual territory has its own ideas about what is good and what is bad. And advertising is a code, an encrypted meaning, which should be read fairly quickly.
“If the user does not understand the code or read it incorrectly, then the advertisement will not work: the “decoder” in this case directly depends on the set of values shared by the target audience,” explains marketing communications consultant, sociologist Ksenia Kasyanova. “That is why, by the way, marketers always collect focus groups and conduct various studies: this helps to understand which value set to appeal to when encrypting an advertising message.”
The audience of Moscow and other million-plus cities is already on the path to moving away from sexism and gender stigmatization. For a progressive metropolitan brand, openly exploiting female sexuality in the spirit of stickers on truckers is not only indecent — it is literally a path to self-destruction. In a small city in central Russia, advertising images with sexual overtones still work.
“The solvent audience is still concentrated in large cities of the country, therefore, when producing advertising, brands focus primarily on it, which means, willy-nilly, they are moving away from sexism,” explains Ksenia Kasyanova. “In other words, it is the set of values that we share that influences our assessment of what we are shown.”
The sensational advertising campaign (in 2019, the company released an advertisement with resonant and scandalous slogans) caused rejection, including for this reason: we still live in a society where it is still believed that men and women have different roles, and sometimes different rights to certain other actions.
“And this idea is so rooted in us that even the most progressive representatives of the Russian community were ambiguous when evaluating this advertising campaign,” says Ksenia Kasyanova.
The second problem is the message encoded in this Reebok ad: militant, provocative.
“Sit down from a male approval needle to a male face”, “Cover your nipples so you don’t cut yourself” — in comparison with the brand’s global advertising, which was built in the same vein, this message was subject to significant changes. According to Ksenia Kasyanova, it would be logical for the Russian public to adapt advertising through softening, and not through deliberately increasing contrast and adding conflict.
Of course, the simplest and most effective techniques — including in advertising — are related to our biology. For example, Tom and Jerry or a wolf and a hare are guaranteed to grab attention because we as a human species want to learn how to avoid danger. Any form of food consumption — for example, a large mouth shown on the screen, to which food is brought, also attracts interest. As is sex.
“In the advertising industry, all this is considered to be “tricks for the poor”, since they do not create additional value — they only attract attention to the screen,” says Ksenia Kasyanova. — Do you remember the name of the brand at the end of the commercial, if it does not contain additional meanings and what resonates with you on an emotional level? Advertisers have long understood that it is not. And sex in this sense sells, first of all, itself, and not the brand.
Why do sexist ads evoke negative reactions in us?
Psychologist, sexologist Irina Panyukova explains:
- One of the mechanisms of action of advertising is the identification of the audience with characters that encourage them to purchase a product. The heroes of sexist advertising do not cause a desire to identify with them.
- Also, advertising is designed to create a positive mood in the consumer associated with the image. Sexist statements, even veiled and «benevolent», contradict modern healthy views, are recognized by people and cause rejection.
- Sexist advertising is based on gender stereotypes, untrue judgments, it contrasts people of different sexes. That is, it always has an element of discrimination, lack of freedom, depreciation, domination and subordination. Such a position is inherently inhumane and destructive, not corresponding to the worldview of a healthy modern person.