Gender Representation in TV Advertising for Children: Children’s perceptions and advertising literacy

Patrícia Dias,Raquel Tavares

doi:10.18568/cmc.v18i53.2386

Abstract

Children are becoming consumers at increasingly younger age and are more influential in consumption decisions within the family. Television still is one of the main ways they are exposed to advertising. Our study focuses on gender stereotypes on TV advertisements for children and combines a content analysis of advertisements and focus groups with children between 7 and 12 years old. Our findings show that, during a period of 3 months, about 75% of TV advertisements for children contain gender stereotypes. In addition, children are able to recognize such stereotypes, and in general do not identify or agree with the way each gender is portrayed. Finally, children display good levels of advertising literacy, as they are able to recognize the intentions of the brands in the commercials.

Highlights

In the last few decades, there have been profound sociological changes in the family
Research design and methodology Our research aims to: a. investigate to which extent gender stereotypes are present in TV advertisements for children in the Portuguese context; b. understand how children interpret and make sense of gender stereotypes present in TV advertisements they are exposed to; and c. explore the children’s advertising literacy and ability to critically reflect upon gender representations in TV advertisements
Considering our first research question - To which extent are gender stereotypes present in TV advertisements for children in the Portuguese context? – we concluded that gender stereotypes were present in 75% of the 104 advertisements in our corpus

Summary

Introduction

In the last few decades, there have been profound sociological changes in the family. Since the 1980s, brands have developed specific marketing strategies for children, and even for more specific segments (MCNEAL, 2007), such as “tweens” for example – a group “in between” childhood and adolescence, from 8 to 12 years old. These strategies aim at selling more quantity and a wider range of specific products and services to these targets, and influencing the consumption decisions within the family, and at building brand equity from an early age – awareness, brand associations, loyalty – increasing the customer lifetime value and building strong and emotional relationships that nurture loyalty and advocacy throughout life (BUCKINGHAM, 2000; ARMSTRONG, 2014; KOTLER; KARTAJAYA; SETIAWAN, 2017). Creating a cartoon series around certain toys was very effective in increasing sales, as was the case of He-Man and My Little Pony, for example (BANSAL, 2008)

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Conclusion