Gender Differences in Advertising

This lecture identified the differences in the response to advertising by gender. Charity adverts such as Cancer Research UK and Barnado's children’s charitie were used as examples to discover the variation in emotional responses between males and females and ultimately whether the desired effect would occur, in these cases donation to the charities or to create awareness of the specific illness/subject. On viewing and discussing each advert, it was clear that females are more affected and are likely to become far more emotionally involved with the subject than males. This could be due to the fact that males are highly influenced by humour in adverts rather than pure emotion resulting in a loss of interest in the subject. This discovery may change if a male has been personally affected by a certain issue such as illness within their close circle of family and friends. After watching the charity adverts and focusing on their structure and content, many powerful, almost overwhelming, feelings and emotions that may have previously been experienced subconsciously where brought to the surface, particularly after the Cancer Research UK advert due to my recent personal experiences with this illness. In comparison, the male audience did not experience such high involvement and emotion as they were more likely to be encouraged to channel the TV channel or leave the room completely proving that this type of advertising is virtually ineffective for males.

The gender differences used in advertising to create an effective campaign are also visible in everyday life using the example of how to impress a woman in comparison to how you would impress a man. With males it is it clear and to the point: show up naked and bring food! Whereas for a woman there are many ways, both simple and complex, that a good impression can be made: compliment her, protect her, spend money on her, respect her, love her etc. These key points used in order to develop a good relationship are important to consider when planning a campaign, whether it is for a charity organisation or to promote a new product/service, so that the desired effect is achieved successfully.

Information taken from the Journal of Advertising Research into gender differences in advertising persuasion state that the response by an individual may be due to differences in values and processing style. It is clear that involvement conditions and the order in which messages are given play an essential part in understanding the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. Females are believed to be more selfless and show a greater concern for others than males do, reinforcing the statement that females are the ‘primary caregivers’ who ‘tend to foster nurturing’ in comparison to the ‘competitive orientation’ of males (Journal of Advertising Research, 2003). As a result of the varying differences in the approach to buying and communication between males and females, there are many implications for advertisers when developing a specific advertising campaign. Women prefer complex adverts that encourage them to process the information and become highly involved in the product/service, whereas males tend to think in a more comprehensive way and need to be shown the bigger picture as they are less likely to process and solve complex metaphors.

Gender has been used in children’s advertising by the use of stereotyping. It has been noticed that many adverts that involve men and women, the male is typically seen as the more authoritative figure whereas the female tends to be used to display a mother-figure in the form of a teacher, nurse, wife or mother. Soloman et al, 2006 states that children are believed to pick up on the concept of gender identity at an earlier age than was previously thought. Research has shown that children as young as 1 or 2 are able to categorise certain activities as being masculine or feminine, such as driving a truck which signifies masculinity or cooking and cleaning which signifies femininity.