A study titled "Gender Bias in Advertising". Interesting, though from the perspective of its results, at the same time sad and thought-provoking.

The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media took a close look at more than 2,000 advertising creations from 2006-2016, which were awarded or shortlisted at the Cannes Festival, and analyzed the participation of women and men in those campaigns. The study proved that a female person appeared in only 1/3 of all ads. What is more, over the years the change toward closing this inequality has been happening at a very slow pace - in 2006, 33.9% of the actors in the studied ads were women, and in 2016 this indicator was only 36.9% (a change of 3% upward). The chart below shows changes in the share of women and men in ads from the Cannes festival over its last 10 editions:

Source: JWT

In the context of average time and women's participation in lines spoken in ads, it is even worse. More than 43.5% of the creations gave women voice for 20% or less of the total duration of all dialogue in the campaign. In the studied spots, men spoke 7 times more often than women. This disproportion over the course of 10 years has - unfortunately - remained unchanged. The study also proved that issues related to strength, self-confidence, and broadly understood achievement of success were spoken more often by men than women (more often by 27%). After analysis using the Flesch-Kincaid test (which assesses the degree of difficulty in understanding a given text), it also turned out that women's fragments of ads are sometimes simplified. Men's were usually understandable to a five-year-old, women's - even below that age. Key facts from the study:

Source: JWT

How to change this state of affairs?

By writing more advertising scripts with the participation of women, putting them at the center of the narrative, giving them more time in the ad and much more ambitious lines to deliver. Most importantly - by ceasing objectification, repetition of sexist clichés and stereotypes, and treating women equally with men in advertising, and of course not only there. Here is a note and a small hint for creative agencies: create mixed teams or include women in the creative process each time - according to the study by the Geena Davis Institute, this increased the participation and role of women in the ads being created by about 7.5%.

In an era of facts that prove that women are responsible for 85% of all purchases (according to Yankelovich Monitor), including cars and homes, and:

91% of new apartments and houses 66% of computers 92% of vacations 80% of insurance and health care 65% of new cars 89% of banks 93% of food 93% of OTC medicines,

such an archaic approach to "modern" advertising and the long-standing discrimination against the role of women in it is not only incomprehensible, but above all unacceptable. Everyone who takes part in the creative process should keep in mind the above data and work collectively to change the image of the advertising industry, which currently favors men.

source: mediafeed.pl