Abstract
Companies increasingly seek to use gay protagonists in audio-visual commercials to attract a new affluent target group. There is also growing demand for the diversity present in society to be reflected in media formats such as advertising. Studies have shown, however, that heterosexual consumers (especially men), who may be part of the company's loyal consumer base, tend to react negatively to gay-themed advertising campaigns. Searching for an instrument to mitigate this unwanted effect, the present study investigated whether carefully selected background music can shape the perceived gender of gay male advertising protagonists. In a 2 × 2 between-subjects online experiment (musical connotation × gender of the participant), 218 heterosexual participants watched a commercial promoting engagement rings that featured gay male protagonists, scored with feminine- or masculine-connoted background music. As expected, women generally reacted more positively than men to the advertising. Men exposed to the masculine-connoted background music rated the promoted brand more positively, and masculine music also enhanced (at least in the short term) these men's acceptance of gay men in general (low and medium effect sizes) more than was the case for feminine background music. Carefully selected background music affecting the perceived gender of gay male advertising protagonists may prevent negative reactions from heterosexual audiences and, therefore, motivate companies to use gay protagonists in television commercials on a more regular basis.
Highlights
There are at least two good reasons why companies increasingly use gay1 protagonists in audio-visual commercials
Participants who watched the stimulus version with masculine-connoted music considered the protagonists as more neutral (M = 2.30, SD = 0.69), whereas, for those exposed to the feminine-connoted music version, the perception was clearly feminine (M = 1.86, SD = 0.66), F(1, 216) = 23.04, p < 0.001, and η2 = 0.096
This difference was not significant either, men listening to masculine music in the commercial liked the brand more than did men who watched the commercial with feminine music—gender × music condition: F(1, 214) = 3.88, p = 0.05, η2 = 0.018
Summary
There are at least two good reasons why companies increasingly use gay protagonists (or other members of sexual and gender minorities) in audio-visual commercials. Instrumental background music in audio-visual media formats can activate particular schemata conveying extra-musical meaning (e.g., Boltz, 2001; Shevy, 2007). Musical stereotypes such as specific instruments, musical genres, and the positive or negative emotional connotation of the music can trigger supra-individual associations, which are projected onto the audio-visual media format (e.g., Shevy, 2007, 2008; Wingstedt et al, 2007; Tan, 2017) This schema activation can change the perception and interpretation of the media format’s general atmosphere, plot, or protagonists (e.g., Boltz, 2001; Tan et al, 2017; Steffens, 2020; Herget, 2021). Some studies have even indicated that a predictable positive or negative attitude change regarding the media format’s subject is induced by positive- or negative-connoted background music tracks (Costabile and Terman, 2013; Nosal et al, 2016)
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