Gender Equality and Femvertising Practices in Advertisements

Abstract

Female figures, frequently featured as the central element in product and service advertisements, are pivotal in shaping marketing messages. In the broader context of gender representation, the roles attributed to women, both traditional and modern, have undergone significant transformations in contemporary society. Feminism, as a key factor influencing modern role distribution, has led to the emergence of feminist marketing, which is often referred to in the literature as femvertising. Using a content analysis methodology, this study examines commercials, awarded across various categories by the EFFIE organisation in 2022. The goal is to explore whether the feminist marketing in these advertisements is driven by commercial interests or is aimed at empowering the female figure from a societal perspective. A comparative analysis was conducted between the commercials of the same brands on March 8th, International Women's Day. The content analysis revealed that, while the awarded commercials predominantly emphasise traditional gender roles, the commercials for International Women's Day focus more on modern role distribution. Additionally, while femvertising appears less frequently in the International Women's Day commercials, it is more prevalent in the other award-winning ads. To broaden the scope of the research, semi-structured interviews were conducted with brands operating in Istanbul, which had received awards in the Mediacat 2022 Best Advertising Agencies category and were also included in the content analysis sample. The interviews were handled within the framework of a descriptive phenomenological approach. Semi-structured interviews were analysed through the MAXQDA program. They noted that the reason for the increase in femvertising application was that the brand's purpose was to create sympathy in the consumer and to make commercial profit. They stated that femvertising applications were advertising tactics. Another result of the study is that the concept of femvertising is perceived conceptually differently by advertisers and advertising agencies.