Is marketing unavoidably sexist? I've been motivated to think a great deal about the question of sexism in marketing and advertising this last week following the amount of press Netregistry gained for using two female nurses at this year's CeBIT expo. Were Netregistry perpetuating a sexist image unnecessarily or are stereotypical gender roles unavoidable within marketing when trying to reach a target audience?
There are two issues involved that require separate analysis. Firstly, the concept of 'sex sells', which I will dissect in a future post. Secondly, whether marketing and advertising are to blame for allegedly perpetuating gender stereotyping, which is the subject of this post.
Reaching the target audience
Contrary to what some critics have suggested to me in the past few days, marketing does not have a responsibility for improving societal attitudes or breaking down gender stereotypes. Marketing is responsible to - and paid for - the brand that is attempting to persuade a specific target market with a particular message. Certainly there are ethical guidelines and rules that apply in how this is achieved, but there are also certain realities that dictate how marketing campaigns represent certain groups.
The most obvious example is in the use of housewife advertising. For most household products, gender roles are still quite clearly split along old fashioned lines. The housewife is at home, deals with the kids, cooks, does laundry and cleans; while the husband works, drives cars, watches sport, buys tools and drinks beer. Certainly, some campaigns blur those lines a little, but for every woman in a suit we see, there's another career woman portrayed picking up the kids on the way home and juggling work with the cooking.
Is marketing therefore undeniably sexist? Are all these agencies populated by misogynistic dinosaurs deliberately perpetuating a sexist view of the world in an attempt to keep women in the kitchen?
Well, no actually.
Blaming the Mirror
Marketing agencies are exceptionally careful in how they target and represent people within campaigns. They are certainly not out to deliberately misrepresent gender roles - in fact, to do so would seriously undermine the effectiveness of a campaign. The goal is to reach and achieve cut through with a specific audience - the key demographic most receptive to the message. When advertising snacks for school lunchboxes, marketers know that - even today - the majority of food purchasing decisions are made by the woman in the house. That's not sexist - just statistical fact. Whether that fact is unfortunate, disappointing or lamentable, I leave up to you. But that doesn't change the truth that more women than men look after the household groceries and determine what their children will eat.
Therefore, an advertisement attempts to reach identification with this group. Placing a man in the role of lunchbox preparer would fail to resonate with the majority of people at whom the message is aimed. It would appear artificial to the very people the brand wanted to reach.
The same observation can be applied across all advertising. The vast majority of power tool purchases are by men, so even though it is a gender stereotype to only portray male carpenters, tradesmen and DIY enthusiasts, it is because that stereotype is still the vast majority. Placing a woman in the carpenter role would only allow a tiny proportion of the audience to identify and relate with the character's actions - thereby sending the marketing message to the wrong people.
This is why Lowes Menswear is advertised by footy players, why perfumes are advertised by female celebrities, why Brand Power adverts are fronted by a female presenter.
Although marketing is designed as an influential medium, it is also forced into the role of society's mirror. The influential power is concentrated in the specific marketing message. Everything that backs up the message - the scenario, characters, actions, etc - are designed to create maximum identification with the largest amount of the target demographic. Therefore, these elements need to mirror society and often exaggerate those trends to achieve instant recognition within the few seconds the advertisement, billboard or poster has to make an instant impression. A marketing campaign can not, and should not, muddy the message by mixing in idealistic agendas, unless this is the campaign brief.
Ideology
The theory of cultural ideology is that media reflects the ideas and beliefs of society. To take some broad examples, there were many films focussed on nuclear war during the 1980's due to the extreme nature of the Cold War at that time. Once the Berlin Wall came down, the Russian's were no longer portrayed as the bad guys and nuclear plots decreased. After 9/11, more villains were portrayed as coming from the Middle East. In recent years, there is a growth in corporate villains in popular culture, reflecting society's growing distrust in big business.
Ideology is about far more than where the villains come from in James Bond thrillers. Every aspect of our society represented in our media, stories, art and advertising is influenced by the state of the world at the time of it's creation. This is where we come to the chicken and egg situation.
As media can - supposedly - influence society (as the critics insist) and society cannot help but influence media, there is a complex and continual looping of ideology. Deciding that a new television drama will featurea 50/50 split across gender roles - male nurses and female carpenters - may seem novel and striking a blow for gender equality, but it would most likely have very little effect on society as a whole and may find that it fails to find an audience willing to buy into the fiction. The world doesn't feel like ours.
Ideology, therefore, shifts very slowly - as does society. It doesn't like being shoved in a particular direction, because artificiality stands out and is often rejected by the audience as false - even if it represents a higher ideal.
Marketing will continue to represent the genders in the same way it always has and will only gradually shift to equality if genuine statistics show the same is happening to society.
