Gender role stereotypes in advertising : a test of the match-up hypothesis on advertising effectiveness.

Abstract

Images in advertisements often depict social expectations for gendered behavior, reinforcing stereotypical masculine and feminine behaviors. This study examined the effectiveness of using gender role stereotypical images in advertisements by matching two products with a male and female, based on the match-up hypothesis. Two gender congruent and two gender incongruent advertisements were created to test the effectiveness of gender congruency on perceived message clarity, advertisement believability, perceived argument quality, attitude toward the advertisement, attitude toward the brand, and purchase intention, based on the information-processing model. Though gender congruent advertisements were perceived as slightly more effective than the gender incongruent advertisements, perceived message clarity was the only variable significantly influenced by gender congruency as messages in gender congruent advertisements were perceived as more clear than those in gender incongruent advertisements. Therefore, this study serves to encourage advertisers to re-evaluate current advertising techniques, as they are currently reinforcing gender stereotypical behaviors for little benefit