A Woman’s Worth
How better portrayal is good for business
By Samira Brophy • 10 mins read
In Great Britain, 29% of people agree that the main role for women in society is to be good wives and mothers. While we can point to other influences, marketing has done its fair share to reinforce gender bias. Discover the commercial upside in challenging gender stereotypes in advertising.
Key takeaways:
Ipsos data reveals a third of Britons, and 38% of 16-24s, increasingly believe a woman’s primary role is to be a good wife and mother. Remembering advertising’s role in gender role reinforcement, 58% of ads tested in the Ipsos database feature women in traditional roles. There is an opportunity for marketers to use non-traditional gender portrayal to drive up ad effectiveness.
Effie case studies back this up with inspiring marketing activity by brands who have realised in-market success with well-rounded portrayals of women in nontraditional roles.
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Ads that feature women in nontraditional roles such as athletes (4%), STEM professionals (3%), Business owners (3%) and artists (2%) are significantly more likely to score high vs. low on the Gender Equality Measure (GEM®).
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Ads with a strong Gender Equality Measure (GEM®) score are 24% more likely to drive short term sales and 28% more likely to drive brand equity.
Campaigns that help the audience understand the brand or take pains to truly understand the audience drive results. For example:
Secret in the US grew their brand by 8.8% collaborating with female Olympic athletes.
Ancestry UK increased revenue from new customer signups 20.4% and increased ROI by 10% by celebrating women’s full lives in history.
Nissan experienced record-breaking sales amongst women in Saudi Arabia by focusing on female accomplishment vs. permission to drive.
Dove US grew sales 10% by challenging the status quo on toxic beauty content that girls see in their social feeds.
It would seem the women’s movement has been running to stand still.
In 2022, almost a third of people (29%) in Great Britain agreed that the main role in society for women is to be good wives and mothers, gradually increasing over the last 10 years from 24% (Figure 1).
If you imagine that this is due to long held beliefs amongst older generations, think again. Of 16-24s, 38% agreed with this statement, which is nearly three times more than 55–74-year-olds and reveals a worrying trend for this demographic (Figure 1).
Whilst there are, of course, social factors influencing the formation of gender stereotypes, such as Andrew Tate’s rise to prominence, marketing has done its fair share to reinforce gender bias more subtly. Brands compound this view of women in three ways.
It’s vital to recognise how wrong we are to assume that progress on gender equality is inevitable and that Gen Z will save us. These young guys are more likely than men my age to say that ‘a man who stays home to look after his children is less of a man’.
Lori Meakin
WACL Exec member, author of ‘No More Menemies’ and founder and CEO of The Others & Me
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Perpetuating power dynamics
Brunel University in collaboration with Starling Bank analysed over 600 photographs used for articles about money and finance. They found that men and women were depicted very differently. Whilst men were shown to be in control and making financial decisions, women were shown clutching piggy banks and counting pennies.
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The deletion of women
An analysis by the Geena Davis institute of Cannes Lions films from 2006-2021 revealed that it wasn’t until 2021 that the creative work submitted reached a near parity in the share of female characters (Figure 2).
Though female characters still displayed less autonomy than their male counterparts, there were some signs of the gender gap narrowing in depictions of authority and leadership between 2019 and 2020.
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Harmful stereotypes
Ads showing domestic chores continue to feature women in these roles. Not only are they depicted as the ones doing the chores, but the Ipsos US Gender Equality Measure (GEM®) database shows that women in ads mostly feature in family roles and in the home (Figures 3 and 4).
Picture a world where women and girls finally witness their true selves portrayed accurately in the media, embracing their full potential. It’s high time we utilise the force of marketing not just to mirror culture but to shape it.
Shelley Zalis
CEO and Founder of The Female Quotient
But, despite these tendencies in the depiction of women, there is a commercial as well as social imperative in better representation. In collaboration with #SeeHer, Ipsos showed that ads with a strong GEM® score were 24% more likely to drive short term sales and 28% more likely to drive brand equity.
Based on the research findings, advertisers can score highly on GEM® by presenting stories of women in non-traditional roles like STEM Professionals, Athletes, or Business Owners (Figure 5).
Brands can benefit from those stronger effectiveness levers by representing women in more varied roles.
Advertising at its best reflects the society it talks to. In a society in which diversity and equity are more openly championed than ever, that should mean not relying on lazy stereotypes of race, sexuality, gender, ethnicity and class. But all too often, advertising has an identity crisis when it comes to women. Still.
Vicki Maguire
Chief Creative Officer, Havas London
Getting representation right
There are several learnings we can draw from Effie award winners on where brands can begin to do better.
In summary
Fiction like Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ gives us goosebumps because it has roots in a reality women already experience. It reminds us of the fragility of liberal freedoms which are hard won, but easily forfeited. As the Ipsos trends on gender equality show, there is much work to be done to erode systemic bias.
Beyond societal benefit, our data shows that there is a clear commercial benefit for brands willing to actively feature powerful portrayals of women. Here is how marketers can tap into the current opportunity to give their brand marketing an advantage:
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Act now: The landscape with women in non-traditional roles is still not as normalised as it could be. There is still plenty of headroom to do things differently & stand apart.
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Focus: Take heed of signals vs. taking on a whole movement. Secret saw an opportunity to drive interest in sports and found a natural fit with their category.
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Advance the conversation: Rather than playing to a current event, treat it like the ‘ground floor’ and ride the elevator to the top. See how you can elevate the narrative, like Nissan did by moving on from celebrating women’s right to drive to celebrating women in Saudi Arabia.
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Make the portrayal as rich as you can: Research and due diligence before execution is important to making portrayals and reflecting on issues authentic like Dove and Ancestry.
Get in touch
Samira Brophy
Senior Director, Ipsos samira.brophy@ipsos.com
Samira is an Ipsos expert on brand and communication work, with 20 years of experience spanning creative and research roles. She leads Ipsos’ earlystage campaign development offer, is a thought leader on ad effectiveness, and works with clients to adopt a misfit mindset and make bolder, highly creative campaigns that audiences value.
