Gender-Pitched Advertising
Gender-Pitched Advertising
"Gender-Pitched Advertising" In today's consumer-oriented society, ad agencies often ask "What makes an effective ad for a man or for a woman?" Gender has been and continues to be one of the biggest factors in advertising and marketing. Gender is frequently used as a basis for segmentation for a significant proportion of products and services. To successfully implement such segmentation, marketers and advertisers need to understand how men and women process marketing information, judge products, and behave in the marketplace.
Advertisements aimed at one sex tend to portray gender differently from advertisements aimed at the other sex. "Gender portrayals during primetime television are different from those of either daytime or weekends."(Putrevu 3) During primetime, women are more likely to be shown in positions of authority and in settings away from the home than they are during daytime. Men, in contrast, are more likely to be portrayed as a parent or spouse and in home settings during primetime than they are on weekends. "Primetime can therefore be referred to as the marked category; since it does not over-employ the use of gender stereotypes."(Putrevu 3) There are no men's beauty and glamour magazines with circulations even approaching those of the women's magazines. "The very idea of men's beauty magazines may strike one as odd."(Barthel 149) In our society men are traditionally supposed to make right appearance-without being overly concerned with their looks or beauty. Perhaps the best-known male fashion magazine is GQ founded in 1957. The highest circulations for men's magazines are for magazines specializing either in sex or sports. "That these magazines share an emphasis on power-either power over women or over other men on the playing field-should not surprise."(Barthel 150) Sex differences are often attributed to the biological differences such as chromosomes, sex hormones, emotional make-up, and brain lateralization. "A large body of clinical, experimental, and observational research suggests that some of the differences observed between the sexes can be attributed to biological factors."(Putrevu 1) However, the small size of the sex differences based on purely biological origins suggests that biology only tells part of the story.
The Social Rule Theory suggests that the male female differences in aptitude and personality traits often reflect traditional gender roles in society. This line of reasoning suggests that males are largely guided by controlling tendencies referred to as genetic goals that stress assertiveness, self-efficacy, and mastery. Males tend to vigorously pursue such self-focused goals...