22 April 2020 | Report
Gender Representation in Philippine Advertising
Summary
Advertisements are shaped not only by the industry that makes them, but also by the culture of the society in which its industries belong. Inspired by the extensive work of Geena Davis Institute on gender representation in media, the study seeks to present a localised analysis of advertisements for gendered portrayals. In partnership with Investing in Women, the study employed a more in-depth interpretation and content analytic rigour. The researchers intended to document the portrayals of all genders in Philippine advertisements across TV, print, and radio, as well as provide a qualitative look into the online advertising landscape and its possibilities.
Highlights
- Certain ad pitches showed noticeable gendered differences. Across platforms, women than men continue to be associated with beauty and youth (10% vs 2%) and value for money (sulit) (8% versus 5%).
- Overall, the ads featured more men (44%) than women (41%). The same is true for Print (54% versus 46%) and Radio (34% versus 16%). TV, though, featured more women (56%) than men (44%).
- More men than women endorsed restaurants, retail outlets, and malls (10% versus 5%), and alcoholic beverages (3% versus 0%).
- More women than men endorsed hygiene and beauty products (11% versus 3%), and household items (8% versus 4%).
- Between genders, women than men were more likely to be typical users/consumers (65% versus 56%), while men were more likely than women to
be experts (13% versus 6%). - Among the 1,329 roles assumed by the characters, familial (41%) was the biggest category, with more women (43%) than men (39%) being depicted in this role.
- Women were overwhelmingly shown as the homemaker, compared to men (11% versus 1%) while characters who are portrayed as skilled laborers are highly likely to be men than women (5% versus 1%).
- Almost two-thirds (66%) of visual ads featured a group, which are either a combination of genders (49%), or primarily female (10%) or male (6%) characters.
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