Portuguese consumers' perception of gender stereotypes in verbal and non-verbal advertising arguments

Melissa Pio
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Abstract

Stereotypes, with their heuristic characteristic, have been widely used in advertising over the decades. However, this form of fast reasoning becomes easily fallacious as it makes use of generalizations, often implicit, and current internalizations of the cultural context in which messages are inserted, leading consumers to certain conclusions, which are not always supported by evidence. Among the most used stereotypes by advertisers are gender stereotypes. And, despite recent studies showing a decrease in their presence in brand messages, this reduction is not significant. Furthermore, when dealt with, this theme is more commonly explored from the point of view of content analysis, thus leaving a gap regarding the reception that consumers make of these stereotypes, both internationally and in the Portuguese context. This study aims to begin to reduce this gap, through a pilot study that measured how residents in Portugal assess the degree of gender stereotyping in verbal and non-verbal arguments of fictitious advertisements, raising evidence of which element, the verbal text or the image, has a more important role in this evaluation. This was done through two questionnaires, one with the degrees of gender stereotypes varying in the verbal text and the other in the image. As a result, we were able to raise evidence that the verbal text seems to make the presence of gender stereotypes clearer for respondents who, in turn, found it easier to recognize stereotypies linked to occupational status

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