Advertisements Encouraging Age-old Stereotypes

The world is evolving at a rapid pace with new advanced technologies changing the way in which brands communicate with the consumers. But let’s face it, stereotyping or generalization about something still exist in the marketing strategy of most brands, much to the annoyance of the viewers. Even in the real world, most people tend to conventionalize everything they see.  If a woman is not married in their late 30s, that becomes a topic to gossip about. If you are a Bengali, you must be a fish-eater or ‘maachh lover’. Ironically, even though most restaurants have male chefs, it is still considered to be the woman’s job to cook or take care of the house. The concept of men wearing makeup or women coming home late is still frowned upon in our society.

Brand marketing and advertising world is bombarded with various stereotypes. Stereotypes in advertising has be to tactful since there are possibilities of negative as well as positive feedback. Ultimately, brands proceed with the message that will reach the audience. The things we see on television are generally ignored, it might not affect us right away but in the long run, we do realize how we have been cajoled into it. Generations after generations, we have been thought how fair and slim is considered to be beautiful, how men are supposed to be the one to looking into finances, how women will short hair or piercing or tattoo are termed as ‘hippie’.

Stereotypes inordinately common in advertising. In fact, there are brands who portray these stereotypes to market their product. Brands usually engage each marketing campaign with a specific agenda and stereotypes play a role in connecting to a specific demographic. Of course, there are companies who approach cause-based marketing campaigns and attempt to break the stereotypes, such as the recent campaigns conceptualized by brands like Titan and Biba.

But today, I’m going to talk about the stereotypes that unduly exist in the marketing world. Here are the few examples which highlights the stereotypes that not only exist in our society but also in the advertising sphere:

The first campaign that I’m going talk about is India’s highest selling skin lightening product, Hindustan Unilever’s Fair & Lovely, which has been renamed very recently as ‘Glow and Lovely’. There is a men’s range of this product, Emami’s Fair & Handsome. Fair & Lovely, in all these years of its existence, had always advertised an association of fairness with marriage, a job as an air hostess, and a man impressing a woman or being famous in his group.

Top Indian celebrities have endorsed Fair & Lovely and Fair & Handsome that promotes fair skin as a means to find love and fame or a glamorous job.

 

The next example is that of Kinder Joy, where we can see gender stereotype. In this ad, we see that the girl has a pink kinder joy and the boy has a blue kinder joy. Moreover, the gift inside the pink kinder joy is usually a doll or a ring or kitchen tools whereas the gift inside the blue kinder joy is a car or plane or a superhero.

Another major example of gender stereotype, is the cringe-worthy 2017 Kwality Walls advertisement, which showed a large Indian family celebrating the first achievement of their daughter- making her first round roti. The advertisement begins with the father, son, and grandparents enjoying at dinner table and ends with the family treating the little daughter with Kwality Walls ice cream for making the round rotis.

Advertisements happen to be one of the powerful tools to spread the right message but instead, most brands choose to go ahead with a stereotypical message. How many ads do we see that show men taking care of the family or women buy expensive products for themselves and not just receive expensive gifts? Advertisements for home cleaning or kitchen supplies are likely to have woman playing the lead and advertisements for financial investments or cars always have men paying money or men driving cars.

Thankfully, not all brands promote these stereotypes. Companies like Bluestone.com, Ariel, Titan Raga, and Biba did come up with such advertisements. Bluestone.com created an ad which showed that if a woman is wearing a solitaire that doesn’t mean that she has been gifted one, she is capable enough to buy one for herself. In 2016, Biba created campaigns like ‘change the conversation’ and ‘change the convention’ to promote equality. 

Kudos to these brands for breaking all stereotypes!