Men's and women's responses to sex role portrayals in advertisements

Abstract

What are the emotions evoked with the audience by advertisements featuring female and male models in different sex roles? Do women and men differ in their emotional and attitudinal response? And how do consumer a priori attitudes towards stereotyped portrayals affect advertising effectiveness? These and related questions are addressed in this paper by examining consumer response to magazine advertisements for a cell phone service in the Czech Republic. Selected stimuli characterize female and male models in an occupational and in a nonoccupational setting. The empirical results indicate that female and male consumers exhibit significantly different emotional and attitudinal reactions measured in terms of disapproval, approval, and surprise, attitude toward the ad, brand attitude, and purchase intention. Both sexes respond most favorably to exclusive portrayals of their own gender. In addition, females exhibit the least favorable reactions to advertisements featuring female models in roles superior to males. Across genders, responses are significantly affected by consumers' a priori attitude towards the sex role portrayal issue.