The generational cohort analysis of empowerment and woman’s portrayals in femvertising

ABSTRACT

As femvertising, through “strong” and “realistic” portrayals of women, has been gaining momentum with brands, it is essential to determine whether it is considered “authentic” and “reformative” by women. As a primary step, this paper uses the Generational Cohort Theory to analyse and compare the perceptions of two distinct groups of women based on fixed parameters of empowerment, sexuality, and identifiability. These cohorts can be viewed as merely an example of a demographic variable to create/describe segments, but as is evident, it goes beyond that to unveil distinct emotions, interpretations, and perceptions based on unique values and social norms pertinent to the groups. Results obtained through focus groups exhibit that the essence of empowerment has shifted from a collective concept of social transformation to an individualistic concept of self-transformation. Contrary to popular belief, that the older cohort is threatened by the erosion of familiar traditional values due to the emergence of pervasive cultural changes through powerful imagery; femvertising was more accepted by Gen-X, than Gen-Y. It provides theoretical and practical implications by categorising the cohorts based on characteristics and decision-making patterns that can be useful to improve the understanding of the target audience and increase the persuasive power of the media images accordingly.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• media portrayals
• generation cohort
• femvertising
• empowerment
• stereotypes
• sexuality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).