gender bias in advertising
TRANSCRIPT
Advertising and Gender-Equality:
The Gender-Equality Index
The Origins:Gender Equality and Advertising
Effectiveness: Developed by and from
Origins: The #SEEHER Initiative: Mission Defined• Start with a goal “To lead the movement to
accurately portray all women and girls in media, so that by 2020, they see themselves reflected as they truly are.”
• White House and ANA initiated #SEEHERcalling national marketers to portray women and girls accurately.
• ABX developed a methodology and syndicated data set to measure gender equality and is licensing it to the ANA –their term for it is the Gender Equality Measure - GEM™
• ABX presently has developed a database of over 10,000 ads with the GEMTM metrics, forming a broad & deep set of normative data across all categories
Developing the Metrics for Measuring Gender Equality in Media
The GEI is linked to Core Ad Effectiveness Measures & KPI’s: What ABX Measures
▪ 14 key inputs
▪ 2 consumption metrics▪ Level of category usage
(Frequent, Regular, Occasional, None)
▪ Level of media consumption (all media; same frequency breaks)
▪ Geographic data▪ 4 census regions
▪ Demographic data ▪ Gender, Age, Education, HHI
Brand Linkage
(Ad Recall)Clear Benefit
Feel About
Advertiser
Better
Worse
No Different
RelevantLike to See
Again
Contact
Company
Awareness Messaging Reputation Relevant Likeability Call to Action
Easily
UnderstoodLike Visit Website
Look For
Product
Purchase
Product
Recommend
Product
Talk to Someone
About it
None/Any
ABX Data is comprised of
Dislike
Awareness Messaging Reputation Relevant Likeability Call to Action
ABX Data is comprised of
Awareness Messaging Reputation Relevant Likeability
5
Note:• “Reputation” is net of “better” minus “worse”• “Any Action” is one or more calls-to-action, highlighted in yellow
• “Blue” data is included in The ABX Index
• The ABX Index correlates and has been
validated via MM Models
• ABX data correlates with legacy copy-testers
• ABX Index is customizable based on factors
that correlate w/client needs.
ABXIndex
ABX ID
AdvertiserABX
Index
Brand
Linkage
Clear
Benefit
Easy to
UnderstandReputation
Any
Action
Contact
Company
Visit
Website
Look
ForPurchase Recommend
Talk to
SomeoneRelevant
See
AgainLike Dislike
Vs. All Ads 127 120 110 111 156 142 59 101 184 211 103 80 160 130 82 31
Vs. Category 116 109 107 107 146 125 61 76 139 217 100 81 142 123 85 37
Vs. Medium 131 117 115 118 169 148 60 98 187 227 113 88 168 142 91 33
101212197
The Advertising Benchmark Index (ABX)
Gender Equality IndexDeveloped by ABX
GEI measures perceptions of how female/male actors are portrayed in
the media by asking consumers about four key characteristics:
• Opinion of how the each gender’s character(s) is being presented
• If character(s) is portrayed in a respectful manner
• If character(s) is presented in an inappropriate manner (eg., sexual stereotyping,
objectification, etc.)
• If character(s) is viewed as a positive role model
The assessment for each ad is compared to a normative database of
thousands of other ads, the largest source of advertising data metrics of
this type. The GEI score represents an index where 100 represents the
average female/male gender score for all ads
ABX developed the GEI and has licensed its use to the ANA’s #SEEHER
program where it is referred to as the Gender Equality Measure - GEM™
Why Understanding Portrayals of Gender Roles is Important to Your Business
Insights Example: Female Millennials are most aware of and
Angered by Portrayals of Gender-Bias and will not purchase
brands that exhibit this behavior
Observation of Gender BiasIt is pervasive!
Regardless of how they self-reported on
awareness of gender bias, every consumer
reported instances or experiences of actual
bias.
100%
Consumers Expect Portrayals of Gender Bias to Increase in the Future
How Relevant is Gender Equality Portrayals to Brands?
Some High-Level Views: Gender Equality Index vs High-Low Ads
• “Normal” vs Objectifying ads
• Cannes and Effie award-winners
• Ads with highly positive representation of women
• Always “Like a Girl”
• Dove “Real Beauty”
• GEI clear measure of good vs poor
GEI vs Objectifying Ads
• A series of print ads that were highly polar
with one ad in the pair being “normal” and
the other being highly objectifying and
negative toward women
• The GEI was much lower for the objectifying
ads and correlated with ABX ad effectiveness
scores; and also showing much lower KPI’s for
Purchase Intent and Brand Reputation scores
GEI Shows that Gender Equality is very relevant to ad effectiveness and brand KPI’s, both for
the overall market and for Unilever
Positive Gender Scores Correlate with Business Impact
+26% Call-to-Action+10% Reputation
Based on ABX metrics from more than 13,000 adsacross all media types and industry segments
Gender Equality is linked to the key KPI’s of Brand Reputation & Purchase Intent for Unilever USA
Correl.=.665
0
50
100
150
200
250
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Bra
nd
Re
pu
tati
on
Sco
re
GEI Total Gender Equality Index
Unilever Gender Equality Index & Overall Brand Reputation Score
Reputation
Correl.=.567
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Bra
nd
Pu
rch
ase
Inte
nt
GEI Total Gender Equality Index
Unilever Gender Equality Index & Brand Purchase Intent for Unilever
Purchase* Covers all Unilever USA ads 180 days ending Mar. 10, 2017
Also for Unilever USA advertising, there is strong linkage between overall ad copy effectiveness & an ad’s Gender Equality Index
Correl.=.676
58
68
78
88
98
108
118
128
138
148
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
AB
X C
op
y Sc
ore
GEI Total Gender Equality Index
Unilever Gender Equality Index & Overall ABX Copy Effectiveness Score
ABX Index
Across product categories, there is a wide range of performance on GEI
116111 111 110 109
106 105 104 103 10397 97
9388
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
Ave
rage
AB
X In
de
x
GEI Female Average by Industry
• Unilever categories tend to score higher on GEI
Unilever Brands also have a wide range of performance on GEI
For Unilever USA, there are both strong and under-performing ads based on the GEI
ABX ID Company Medium First Run
ABX Total
Copy Score
Index
Reputation
Score
Purchase
Intent
Presen- ted
Male
Respect-
ful Male
Inappro-
priate Male
Role- model
Male
Presen-
ted Female
Respec-ful
Female
Inap-
propriate
Female
Role-
model
Female
Total
Gender
Index Male
Total
Gender
Index
Female
Total
Gender
Index All
2542921 Axe
Online
Video 2016-08-09 107 85 75 97 89 100 93 95 88 101 86 95 93 94
2542922 Axe
Online
Video 2016-08-17 103 85 63 89 94 104 90 80 87 103 77 95 88 91
2559363 Axe
Online
Video 2016-09-05 74 59 71 67 66 82 58 79 78 94 73 69 82 75
2559380 Degree
Online
Video 2016-09-04 122 146 131 109 106 98 99 103 103
2573194 Axe
Online
Video 2016-09-10 96 114 93 95 91 98 94 102 101 100 105 95 102 98
2573195 Axe
Online
Video 2016-09-09 89 84 96 79 80 94 70 77 87 97 76 82 85 83
2579264 St. Ives Print 2016-10-01 99 75 63 99 97 92 98 96 96
2579789
I Can't Believe It's Not
Butter Television 2016-09-19 113 107 138 89 78 99 83 96 98 100 95 88 98 93
2584070 Degree
Online
Video 2016-09-16 125 130 122 119 126 106 120 117 117
2584168 Suave
Online
Video 2016-09-19 111 123 96 113 109 101 110 108 106
2586286 Simple Online 2016-09-20 97 91 80 104 109 90 108 102 102
2587112 Degree
Online
Video 2016-09-23 119 123 131 99 110 98 94 100 100
2594390 Dove Online 2016-09-26 97 95 110 113 115 103 113 110 110
2595940 Degree
Online
Video 2016-08-10 122 152 152 114 112 96 115 108 108
2600926 Dove Print 2016-10-01 108 104 122 114 112 102 107 108 108
2604063 Simple
Online
Video 2016-09-29 118 139 118 119 117 95 118 111 111
2604064 Simple
Online
Video 2016-09-29 114 130 135 115 117 93 111 108 108
2605137 Slim-Fast Print 2016-10-03 96 60 68 108 107 92 111 104 104
2606628 TRESemme Print 2016-09-25 106 114 110 120 116 98 121 113 113
2615162 Slim-Fast Print 2016-10-17 100 104 38 99 99 98 95 98 98
2617516 Axe Television 2016-10-13 88 70 97 76 75 91 72 90 93 104 82 79 93 86
2621313 Suave Television 2016-10-17 125 173 172 123 120 99 122 115 115
Over past year, ranges from 75 to 126!
• Strong GEI ad for Degree Dry Deodorant for Women
• This Degree Dry Television ad, which ran Jan. 1, 2017, scored high on the GEI at 119. This ad also scored very high on brand reputation (171) and Purchase Intent (220) and generated an overall ABX Copy Score of 131
• This rating was all driven by the GEI for women
• Strong GEI ad for Dove
• This Dove Online Video, which ran Oct 25, 2016, scored high on the GEI at 117. This ad also scored very high on brand reputation (160) and Purchase Intent (172) and generated an overall ABX Copy Score of 129
• This rating was also all driven by the GEI for women
• Under-Performing GEI ad for Axe• Axe TV ad, which ran Oct 13, 2016, scored low on
the GEI at 86. This ad also scored very low on brand reputation (70) and moderate on Purchase Intent (97); and generated an overall ABX Copy Score of just 88
• Here, the female GEI was 93 and the male GEI was just 79. This lower rating for males resulted in the ad scoring lower on overall effectiveness among females.
How it Works!
• GEI metrics can be a stand-alone metric or as part of ABX’s ad testing syndicated system
• The latter includes ad tests for all Unilever brands across all media channels and delivered reporting in 24-48 hours!
• ABX data delivered fast (24-48 hours) and with an online reporting portal
• Subscribers have GEI benchmarks across thousands of tested ads both within and across brand categories.
Real-Time Access
On the Desktop: Mobile:
• Ad data can be displayed as a detail grid and exported to Excel
• Clicking on column headers reorders the data displayed by the column
Access to all KPIs – No Black Box
Forward
1. Gender equality has been shown to be linked to overall ad copy performance and also to important brand KPI’s such as Brand Reputation & Purchase Intent.
2. Developing a comprehensive measurement system and protocol to assess how your ads are portraying gender roles is no longer a nice thing to have, it is increasingly becoming a business imperative
Gary Getto
President,
Advertising Benchmark Index
M: 347.443.8869
http://blog.adbenchmark.com
Michael Wolfe
CEO
Bottom Line Analytics Global
M: 678.314.8446
www.bottomlineanalytics.com
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Thank You!!
Angela Jeffrey
Vice President,
Advertising Benchmark Index
M: 347.443.8869
http://blog.adbenchmark.com
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