TheJakartaPost

Please Update your browser

Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.

Jakarta Post

Only 2% of ads show women as leaders: Study

The study, commissioned by consumer goods giant Unilever, inspires the company to begin "Unstereotype" campaigns.

Devina Heriyanto (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Sun, October 21, 2018

Share This Article

Change Size

Only 2% of ads show women as leaders: Study In June 2017, Unilever launched a partnership with UN Women and other industry leaders to create the Unstereotype Alliance to banish stereotypical portrayals of gender in advertising and all brand-led content. (Shutterstock/File)

I

n Indonesia, only 2 percent of advertisements from the consumer goods industry show women in aspirational or leadership positions, a study by consulting firm Ebiquity Ad Intelligence finds.

The recent study was commissioned by consumer goods giant Unilever, which currently stands as the second-largest advertiser in the world.

Unilever executive vice president for global marketing Aline Santos told The Jakarta Post recently that a similar pattern could be found across the region. Only 13 percent of industry-wide consumer goods advertisements in China, India and Indonesia featuring women and 18 percent of advertisements featuring men were seen to be positive or progressive.

“In the TV and digital advertisements we assessed, which were first aired in Indonesia this year, the most common themes were women being featured, but having no clear role aside from demonstrating a product,” said Aline. The number reaches as high as 62 percent, meaning that almost two in every three advertisements treat women only as moving mannequins. It does not help that only 4 percent of advertisements portray women as anything besides slim or 'stereotypically' good-looking.

“The advertising industry can be guilty of putting labels on men too,” Aline said. The study finds that only about 9 percent of advertisements show men doing child care or domestic work. Portrayal of men as caring fathers only appears in 3 percent of all advertisements analyzed.

Unilever is trying to defy stereotypes through its #Unstereotype campaign, which started in 2016. In June 2017, Unilever launched a partnership with UN Women and other industry leaders to create the Unstereotype Alliance to banish stereotypical portrayals of gender in advertising and all brand-led content.

Citing unconscious bias as one of the main barriers to change, Unilever has also run training dubbed “Unstereotype Bootcamp” to help employees uncover stereotypes and the harmful effect they can bear. Earlier this year, Starbucks made headlines for its decision to close over 8,000 its stores early in the United States to conduct "racial-bias education". This was after outrage over the arrests of two black men in one of its cafes.

“We have tested thousands of advertisements globally against Unstereotype criteria and consumer feedback across the Asia-Pacific tells us that 96 percent of our advertising in 2018 was seen by consumers as realistic or modern and forward-looking,” said Alice of the company’s efforts to defy stereotyping in advertisements.

Aline further mentioned that there were three areas in which people were typically misrepresented: role, personality and appearance.

“In Indonesia we launched Sunsilk’s Hijab Hair Range, the first hair care range designed by Unilever especially for Muslim women who wear hijab head scarves. In our advertising we featured progressive Muslim women, including a young taekwondo fighter, YouTube star and proud hijab-wearer, Carla Rizki. We want to see more great examples of Unstereotype in action like this,” said Aline.

Unilever strives to go beyond gender to other vital dimensions such as race, class, accent, education, appearance and sexuality in order to tackle stereotypes. For instance, the research also finds that only 3 percent of advertisements show women over the age of 40, while the number stands at 2 percent for men. Not a single one shows a person with a disability.

In October last year, Unilever pulled a Facebook advertisement of a body wash by its subsidiary Dove, which is accused of being racist because it showed a black woman turning white. Dove apologized for the advertisement. “This did not represent the diversity of real beauty, which is something Dove is passionate about and is core to our beliefs, and it should not have happened,” Dove said in a statement last year.

“Advertising and marketing play a valuable and critical role in shaping culture. Every day, billions of people around the world are exposed to the communications our industry creates,” said Aline. “We need to reflect a more inclusive society and diversity in age, ethnicity, ability, sexual orientation and personal backgrounds.”

 

{

Your Opinion Matters

Share your experiences, suggestions, and any issues you've encountered on The Jakarta Post. We're here to listen.

Enter at least 30 characters
0 / 30

Thank You

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We appreciate your feedback.