Sociology

If advertising campaigns are guilty of one thing, it would be playing to stereotypes entirely too much. Though many people choose to focus their criticisms of advertising campaigns on racial driven stereotypes, gender-based stereotypes are actually much more common in everyday advertising. One of the most pronounced trends over time has been the insistence in advertisements that the man is the bread winner and the woman is the homemaker. Though society has changed to a large extent and this is no longer exclusively the case, it is still depicted that way in most advertising spots. The real question has to do with why that is the case. Why do teams of skilled marketing professionals insist on representing a partial truth that seems to be slipping away This questions importance is sweeping and far reaching, as advertising remains one of the most influential items for people in todays society. According to many studies done on the subject, there are many reasons why this is the case, with some of them having to do with the definition level of gender roles within a certain society and others relating directly to the mission of the advertising company. The simple answer is that advertisements reflect this misshapen view because it suits the needs of the company paying for the advertisement spot, but the real answer is much more complicated than that somewhat limited take on the subject matter at hand.

Of the many studies that have been done to this effect, some of the most interesting have been cross-cultural studies designed to see how advertisements differ across the world. Though it might be easy to just sit back and study the American outlook on something like advertising, this would provide an incomplete view on why things are the way that they are. Of particular interest is a study done by Kristof De Wulf. He took a hard look at two different countries  the UK and the Netherlands  in an attempt to see if those two very different countries had different types of advertising roles. De Wulfs study used masculinity scores to determine which cultures had the most clearly defined roles between men and women. The United Kingdom ranked high in terms of masculinity, which meant that the roles of men and women were somewhat separated, with perception within the country being that men were supposed to be assertive, strong, hard working, and full of other such qualities, while women were expected to be somewhat meek. The Netherlands, on the other hand, ranked very low on the scale of masculinity, meaning that the roles were somewhat intertwined, with each gender doing its fair share of different tasks in the country. The study found that in the United Kingdom, more advertisements featured men in prominent roles and put women in their place, so to speak. Though this is obviously something that is not in touch with the times, the advertising methods might just be in line with what perception happens to be in a given country. De Wolfs study found, In UK advertisements, 3.2 of all female central characters were depicted in a working role compared to 5.9 in Dutch advertisements. This difference was found to be marginally significant (Z  1.73) (De Wolf). From this, one may conclude that at least part of the explanation has to do with how the advertising company perceives a society. That firm may be playing on the notions of the people who inhabit that country, since that sort of marketing would be much more likely to hit close to home and sell the product that is being marketed.

Though that study itself took a hard look at some of the trends outside of the United States, advertising within the United States has been the subject of far more scrutiny over time. According to many who have studied the subject, the major reason why American ads portray men in powerful roles has to do with Americas perception. Jean Kilbourne, in her article Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt Advertising and Violence insinuated that the primary reason why so many advertisements depict men and women this way is that it is what we want to see (Kilbourne, 2004). Consumers are familiar with the message of male strength and female passiveness, so advertisers play to that. What this creates is a vicious cycle where things continue to build upon themselves. One of the major issues is that advertising helps to enhance stereotypes and it helps to hammer home the perceptions that people might have. The advertising world has a lot of power, as is written in an article by Hubert Krugman. He writes of the power of advertising, Among the wonders of the twentieth century has been the ability of the mass media repeatedly to expose audiences numbered in millions to campaigns of coordinated messages (Krugman). Since the world of advertising has such great influence over how people think and more importantly, how people perceive the world around them, the fact that advertising continues to proliferate stereotypes is a problem that builds upon itself. As advertising companies push those gender-based roles, it is assumed that more people believe in those hard-line gender establishments. As more people believe in the gender roles, advertisers have more incentive to go forward with advertisements that strike close to home for the viewers.

According to many, the best and only way to change the perception brought forth in advertising is to change the actual perception on the ground. This is a difficult idea to approach, though, since perceptions are often shaped by experiences and people tend to have different experiences depending upon their background or upbringing. One hope, however, is that advertising is just behind the curve in terms of recognizing the relevant roles of men and women in todays society.

Going back to De Wulfs study, one of the interesting items that was proposed was that some studies are slow to account for the changing dynamic of men and women. Up until two or so decades ago, women had not played a prominent role in the business world at large. Though women were becoming more educated and doing good things in the business world, perception had not yet shifted. This could account for why the advertisers continue to put forth advertisements that bring about old, tired stereotypes. Instead of updating their approach and changing their advertising campaigns, marketing professionals may be working with old perceptions that they still believe people to hold. Many of the companies that are buying the most expensive, most influential advertising spots are those companies that have been highly successful. After all, companies are not able to afford million dollar advertising campaigns for the Super Bowl unless they have done well with their sales over time. This may trick companies into thinking that nothing is really wrong with their current marketing approach. The old if it is not broken, dont fix it mantra may come into play and it does make some sense when it is broken down in dollars and sense.

An alternative explanation is that advertising, at least for some companies, is an expensive thing. Though companies are always trying to deal with issues of image and how they are perceived by prospective customers, they are not able to dedicate resources to figuring out new, effective advertising campaigns. It may seem like an easy thing to just re-design a companys marketing approach, but this is something that can take months to accomplish and it is something that comes with a high degree of inherent risk. Companies do not like to take on this risk, especially in difficult financial times. Todays companies have to be more concerned with efficiency and the bottom line than ever before, which may lead them to avoid risky and difficult marketing ventures. Some might argue that this is sheer laziness on the part of companies, as they will not go the extra mile to figure out what consumers want, but others would argue that consumers are not currently mad enough about gender stereotypes to force advertisers to change their approach. Once again, this shifts the responsibility back onto the viewers and onto society at large, which must do its part to change perception and argue for the proliferation of new ideas by marketing professions of the major American companies.
           
Advertisers also argue that their advertising models are not meant to reflect accurate portrayals of gender roles. It matters not to Dockers that women are now powerful in society. They are attempting to sell jeans to a mostly male customer base, so they have a vested interest in appealing to the senses of those customers. This may have been what prompted the company to run its most recent and most popular advertising campaign during the Super Bowl. The advertisement featured men walking around wearing no pants, singing a song that included, I wear no pants This was an insinuation that men who did not wear the pants in a relationship were not real men. It painted those men as being weak and unattractive, while presenting a man who is wearing Dockers pants in the end as the most attractive representative in the entire commercial. This advertisement was not meant as a treatise on the American social condition. It was, instead, an attempt to fulfill the marketing departments obligation to the company. They are paid to come up with the most effective means of selling the product and in this case, that product happened to be a pair of pants aimed at men. Though not all advertisements fall under this category, this is true for a large majority of advertisements out there. Most analysis of advertising fails to take into account what is truly meant by the ad spots that are being put onto television or into magazines. Accuracy often takes a back seat to sheer sales tactics in terms of trying to move mens emotions or trying to move womens emotions in some cases.

Additionally, there are many times when the role of an advertisement is just to be entertaining, no matter what that might mean. Just as movies and television programs can present pictures of gender roles that are less than accurate for the sake of entertainment and telling a story, an advertisement can do the same thing. This shifts the responsibility to the viewer to actively detect what is being said in the advertisement and to not allow it to have a major, overwhelming effect on their perception of gender roles and the like.

The complex answer to this sometimes-difficult question is that there are many reasons why advertisers do things, and they are not always in line with what analyzers might be thinking. The role of advertising on public perception is important to keep in mind, as it continues to power how consumers view things around them. Still, in many cases the advertisers are just putting ads on television and into magazines that they feel represents the consumers feelings on society.

Additionally, it can be argued that there is no incentive for advertisers to go forward with a risky business approach that may or may not yield them more sales as a direct result of the change. Though arguments could be made about the social responsibility that companies currently have, many companies would argue that their first responsibility is to the shareholders of the company, as those are the people who make the company go. In the end, it may just be a case of advertising not needing to be a social litmus test, as ads are not truly meant to depict what actual gender roles are in society. Though women may be moving into CEO offices across the country and men are not always as assertive as one will see in a jeans commercial, the primary point of a marketing campaign is to position the company for a sales increase in the next quarter.