Consumers’ Opinions on Gender Stereotyping in Advertising

Abstract

Successful advertising conveys dominant and accepted values of a certain country, culture or group of people. By using values characteristic of a specific segment, the likelihood of creating a successful advertisement increases, which is why stereotypes that existin a society have a very big influence on advertising content and style. One of the most discussed types of stereotyping is gender stereotyping. Since a culture greatly affects the way gender roles are defined and since most of the conducted research in this area comes from the western world, this study was aimed at exploring the way gender roles are perceived in Croatia.The main goal of the study was to get insight into the way Croatian consumers perceive advertising stereotypes. The theoretical framework was based on Hofstede’s masculinity dimension according to which Croatia is a conservative country with traditional values.Through the research it came out that respondents recognized various elementsof gender stereotyping such as age, work roles, objectification and the gender of the voice-over. In most cases female respondents recognized gender roles in advertising as negative and stated negative attitudes towards them. On the other hand male respondentsrecognized mentioned stereotypes but were mainly indifferent to them.