Non‐traditional male gender portrayal as a persuasion tool in advertising

We would like to thank Professor Anthony R. Pratkanis, Dr. Patrick Leman, and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful and useful comments on the manuscript.

Abstract

The outcomes of an experiment investigating the effectiveness of gendered advertisements that use traditional or non‐traditional male portrayals are reported. The effectiveness of the ads was tested in relation to perceivers' attitudes to male gender roles on a Polish student sample. The experiment followed a 2 (ad type)×2 (gender attitude) mixed factorial design. The main finding was that the non‐traditional ad strategies were more effective than the traditional ones, supporting the predictions of research on message elaboration and the pique technique. Moreover, attitudes to male gender roles played a moderating role where the predictions of the gender attitude/ad strategy match hypothesis were supported. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

We would like to thank Professor Anthony R. Pratkanis, Dr. Patrick Leman, and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful and useful comments on the manuscript.

Keywords:

• advertising
• gender roles
• gender stereotypes
• persuasion

Notes

We would like to thank Professor Anthony R. Pratkanis, Dr. Patrick Leman, and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful and useful comments on the manuscript.

1. These features of the product were tested post‐factum in a study in which 18 participants were asked to indicate (using 7‐point semantic differential scales) how feminine vs masculine (−3, 3) and requiring little thought vs a lot of thought (1–7) the product was. The vitamins were perceived as moderately involving (M = 4.27) and only slightly feminine (M = −1.27).

2. Note that the brand name differs from the Polish word witamina, which translates into English “vitamin.”

3. A previously conducted Internet poll was the basis for the contents of the descriptions used in the task. Respondents were asked to define the appearance, behavior, and traits of traditional and atypical men. These characteristics were then evaluated by five independent judges on three dimensions: domination vs submission, independence vs dependence, and positive vs negative affect evoked by the described representatives of the two categories (typical man – Businessman; atypical man – Househusband). The outcomes were satisfactory—each of the descriptions was evaluated as was expected and then used in the evaluation task (that is, dominant and independent for traditional man and submissive and dependent for counter‐stereotypical man, with both described characters rated positively).