26th November 2021
Online Event at Zoom
GenderNext Conclave Webinar, was presented in association with The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) & Futurebrands on 26th November 2021 from 3:30 P.M. onwards. Two panels discussed the recently released GenderNext Report and the learnings for the advertising industry. 160 industry members registered for the webinar and it was also telecast live on Facebook and reached 259 viewers.
Panel One - Gender Landscape, Reel v/s Real Women
• Lipika Kumaran - Sr. Vice President - Strategy at Futurebrands
• Manisha Kapoor - Secretary General, ASCI
• Dr. A L Sharda – Director, Population First
• Rajat Ray - Social Innovations Adviser
Panel Two - SEA - A Roadmap for Change
• Puneet Kapoor - Regional Creative Officer, Lowe Lintas (South)
• Suntro Lahiri - Vice President, Creative Services, The Glitch
• Sumit Mathur - Chief Marketing Officer, Kellogg’s
• Nisha Singhania - Co-Founder & Director, Infectious Advertising
• Sonam Pradhan - Head – Integrated Media & Advertising
Points of discussion:
• Learnings from the GenderNext report were shared. Lipika Kumar explained that the report was not a witch-hunt after ads, but a means to find the implicit assumptions that are keeping the industry out of touch with the consumer and where she's moving.
• Manisha Kapoor said that the biggest eye-opener from the report was that many brands that called themselves progressive, miss out on many stereotypes during their advertising.
• Dr AL Sharada noted that there is a need for a lot more introspection and conversation. "This report will help advertisers know better and not make mistakes, about portraying women as empowered. It's not about showing women in a powerful position, but about showcasing the subtleties of the kind of environment they're working in.
• Is advertising today progressive or regressive? Rajat Ray argued that what's not touched explicitly in the report is the fact that advertisers are not lazy, but they lack clarity. "Gender-based triggers are very different for an advertising person. Sometimes, we realise something was wrong, only after coming up with a beautiful ad. It's unfair to expect every ad to be totally sensitive. We are fighting a situation where many people are not gender-sensitive. Reports are read and forgotten."
• Difficulties advertisers face -when asked if advertising was regressing or progressing, Dr Sharada shared that some things continued from the past, while some are a reflection of reality. She admitted that for the advertiser, it is all about who the target audience is. Speaking about the ads that might carry stereotypes with a clean intention, she explained, "Some advertisers try not to hurt the sentiments of the middle-aged, and so, when it comes to advertising products like cooking oils, they still show the woman as in charge. Not doing so might make the older women feel like they're losing their territory of control. Hence, normalising things, (like men cooking), is very important and needs to be built into the communication."
• How can advertisers make it better? "The problem in ads made for fairness products is the very fact that they are made for men and women to look better," said Dr Sharada. However, she added that the bigger problem is that - these ads create certain expectations that harbour insecurity, especially among adolescents. Speaking about the challenge in front of advertisers, she stated, "The hard part is, in order to promote beauty products, you have to somewhere breed insecurities and create them. They have to know how to show the product and what it does for the person, without undermining the self-esteem of the people watching it."
• Category disconnect – real v/s reel.
• Exclusion of women in certain categories.
• How can creative agencies look at advertising to create more progressive depictions?
• When advertising tries to create a change, it dramatises the situation, rather than normalising it. "We have to ask questions like - would the depictions look similar with the changed communication, even in terms of body language or financial decisions? How has the change been shown? Is there a sensationalisation? When it comes to showing men in the kitchen, it should be important to not have the whole family gather around him like it's a big deal. This kind of aberration is what also causes people to infer to it as an aberration."
• Experts also gave examples of how brands like sports cars only feature men - since qualities of adventure and risk-taking are often synonymous with being macho, whereas the smaller car ads would show women taking their families for an outing.
• To give a more genuine sense of the situation to advertisers, Kumaran suggested that they look and compare advertising versus how women portray themselves on social media. "You would see a very diverse representation of how women want to be seen and you'll know how advertising is working with a very small list of traits."
• Importance of the background images in advertisements, their role in creating stereotypical depictions.
• Women in the creative business, will that impact how ads are made?
• Brands have an internal screening process to look at stereotypes.
• Standard / ready-made story lines for categories, need to break the loop.
Highlights of the report:
• GenderNext, the study reveals that while there are some positive moves, mainstream advertising still heavily borrows from an inventory of overused, and sometimes harmful stereotypical tropes. A detailed study of over six hundred advertisements revealed several problematic tropes- such as sensualising the act of eating by women, showing women as spenders in financial advertising, women running around the house while others lounge around, male gaze acceptance in beauty ads, showing women as lower down in tech-hierarchy in gadget ads, male celebrities challenging and instructing women, among others.
• Women interviewed across different life stages and town classes pointed out that it is not them but others in their sphere who lag behind them, and they are the ones in need of empowerment. They feel that advertising can be their ally in this journey. The study found that for young unmarried women, common stereotypes used in advertising such as women joyfully undertaking the drudgery of work was not aspirational at all. Typical women’s day ads that show women emerge victorious after significant struggle were not considered particularly empowering. Women are tired of ads showing young women being bestowed with freedoms only after putting up a fight.
• The study proposes a category agnostic framework “The SEA (Self-esteemed - Empowered – Allied) Framework” that aims to guide stakeholders in imagining as well as evaluating portrayals of women in their advertising by building empathy and aiding evaluation.
• The study also proposes a 3S screener for scripts/storyboards, casting, styling to identify stereotype red flags. The screener looks at aspects of a) Subordination b) Service and c) Standardisation.
The link to view: https://bit.ly/3K9Mzc4