Toy stores have always had separate section for the boy toys and the girl toys. Gender-specific marketing has a lot to do with the way people see certain objects. Advertisers produce commercials that reach out to the specific gender that they think is more likely to consume their product. Gender-specific advertising negatively affects consumers, society, and companies.
Gender-specific marketing limits the consumer choice. It affects the consumer in a negative way because it puts items in a category and may limit their way of thinking about that item and can make them choice a different item. When children are in a play setting, two different genders are seen. Girls often play with dolls and boys tend to play with action figures (Fitzgerald
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It effects girls because usually when someone thinks of a police officer or doctor the person is expected to be a male. Normally, women are not seen playing a strong leadership role and are supposed to be less dominant than men. Unlike females, on the other hand where males are seen more superior out of the two genders. Most professions that require strength are targeted to men. Men are the expected ones in law enforcement fields and it is more accepted by society for them to be a doctor or a police officer. It effects boys because if they wanted to be in a career such as a nurse or caregiver it would be slightly frowned upon because it would be considered a job held by a woman. Donald R. McCreary wrote, “When confronted with males and females deviating from society 's sex-based gender role prescriptions, people tend to respond more negatively to the males ' transgressions”( 517). Males in professions that are targeted to females are assumed to be soft and having women tendencies. This is also the case when it comes to profession of teaching. Society once saw teachers as primarily being a role held by women, not men. Women historically were seen as the teacher and schoolmarms that provided education to youths over the …show more content…
It limits a company’s earnings potential because the market for that specific item would be targeted to only one gender. This makes the profit rate decrease because the target market for that specific item would be only a man or only a woman. By targeting boys in the marketing of mini racecars, hot wheels may have a lower profit rate because its main target is little boys. If the product was a unisex product it would have an abundance of profit coming its way because it is hitting the needs of more than one specific gender. According to Kate Fitzgerald, every toy makers dream is to make a toy that every boy and girl finds irresistible. A “smash” toy can generate a large sum of profits almost overnight and one that can appeal to both genders would be considered a double-whammy (1). For example, board games, puzzles and bubbles which is not gender labeled has a better chance of greater profit potential than a toy like the mini race cars. It would be better for companies to have items like the ones listed above for better sale
It’s clear that those advertisements try to make an impact on our buying decisions. We can even say they manipulate viewers by targeting specific group of people or categorizing them so they could have a feeling this product is intended for them or what he or she represents. For instance, they use gender stereotypes. Advertises make use of men and woman appearance or behavior for the sake of making the message memorable. Therefore, most effective and common method is to represent a woman as a sexual object. They are linked with home environment where being a housewife or a mother is a perfect job for the. In other hand men are used more as work done representations. They are associated with power, leadership and efficiency. Those stereotypes make the consumer categorize themselves and reveals the mainstream idea of social status each gender needs to be to fit in and what products they are necessary to have to be part of that
Common sense seems to dictate that commercials just advertise products. But in reality, advertising is a multi-headed beast that targets specific genders, races, ages, etc. In “Men’s Men & Women’s Women”, author Steve Craig focuses on one head of the beast: gender. Craig suggests that, “Advertisers . . . portray different images to men and women in order to exploit the different deep seated motivations and anxieties connected to gender identity.” In other words, advertisers manipulate consumers’ fantasies to sell their product. In this essay, I will be analyzing four different commercials that focuses on appealing to specific genders.
Where commercials that are selling a product to women focus on beauty or the ease of use using wording like sleek clean lines, soft, makes life easier. This is because men are portrayed as being masculine and being responsible for outdoor chores like lawn maintenance where as women are portrayed as delicate and weak and tend to be in charge of daily in home chores like cooking, and cleaning. While analyzing the genders used in the commercials and what the roles were we found that the women tended to do the shopping and asking the questions about products and the men seemed to be bored and were there to pay the bill and be the one responsible for the assembly of the product purchased. The colors of the products being sold play important role as well. Men seem to be more attracted to darker or bolder colors like black, red, green, and blue where products for women are usually lighter or softer colors like white, or pastels.
Rajecki, D. W., Dame, J., Creek, K., Barrickman, P. J., Reid, C. A., & Appleby, D. C. (1993). Gender Casting in Television Toy Advertisements: Distributions, Message Content Analysis, and Evaluations. Journal Of Consumer Psychology (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates), 2(3), 307.
Based on my observation, Walmart is one of the toy retailers labeled and categorized toys by gender. They placed “Girls” and “Boys” signs over their toy aisles. Initially, I studied the toys under
Although, the pictures illustrate that girls 'enjoy dresses ' and pink toys while boys enjoy active play toys, such as balls. Most of the toys in this store would seem to prepare girls to be princess and boys to be athletes. In contrast, there is a miscellaneous section that had gender neutral toys for an age group of kids 3-7; these toys had cooking sets, medical sets, and farming sets. Subsequently, it can be said that some of these gender-neutral toys could be preparing children for roles as farmers, doctors, and chefs. This section of gender-neutral toys seemed to be just randomly placed in the middle of the store, and the only other gender-neutral section seemed to be in the 1-5 age range. I didn’t see a ‘strategy of attraction’ for these gender-neutral toys. For this miscellaneous section, it seemed to be more of the predisposition of a child, for example, a child that may like horses might gravitate towards the gender-neutral farming set. For the 1-5 age, the attraction would be the sounds, touches, and movements of the toy. In this TOYS R US, it seemed to
Auster, Carol, and Claire Mansbach. "The Gender Marketing Of Toys: An Analysis Of Color And Type Of Toy On The Disney Store Website." Sex Roles 67.7/8 (2012): 375-388. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
In the article The gender Marketing of toys: An Analysis of Color and Type of Toy on the Disney Store Website, Auster and Mansbach conducted research to examine the gender marketing of toys on the internet. They looked at what characteristics of “boys and girls” toys share, such as color of toy, type of toy, and witch toys were labeled for girls and boys. The pre - research of this study suggested that children are making gender distinctions of themselves and their group based on the types of toys that are bought for them. Bright and darker colors are meant as a distinction for “boy” toys, while pastel colors are meant for “girl” toys. The previous research also suggested that toys for boys and girls express traditional gender roles and that gender neutral toys are more likely to
When I went into Toys“R”Us, there was an array of toys. Some were geared for infants while others were geared toward older kids. They were separated into different isles such as “Action Figures,” “Arts and Crafts,” “Games and Puzzles,” “Electronics,” “Outdoor Play” and many more. There was a clear distinction in what was for girls and what was for boys. Either different isles would separate girls and boys toys or one side of an isle would target boys and the other side would target girls. Sometimes I saw one item in blue, and adjacent to it, the same toy in pink. I did come across a “gender neutral” section, which had games, puzzles and play sets such as Monopoly and Clue. The gender-neutral section seemed to use a lot of red, green and black with no distinct male or female characteristics.
Nevertheless, majority of individuals in modern societies deem that, such advertisements can cause so many harmful effects to women gender identity, such as low self-esteem. Also, it can cause depression in the women advertising due to the lack of confidence. Whereas, a minority of people believe that, it is all about the women own decision whether to be exposed in such kinds of images or not. As well, it may benefit both parties, the women who advertise and the advertising companies that organize them. It can be assumed that, this issue of so-called advertising shapes female gender identity, has both benefits and damages, and damages can occur more than advantages.
For example, Text 1 is a Lego advertisement from 1981 that depicts both boys and girls playing together using the same toys. The prominent colors of the ad, brown and yellow, tend to be considered gender neutral. Also, the children are both wearing gender-neutral clothing of jean fabric. Although the airplanes are generally masculine toys, the girl is also playing with the airplane. Both children are enjoying the toy equally. In the 1980s, society thought of boys and girls as separate entities. They thought boys had to be a certain type and girls a certain type. Factually, this advertising was playing the role of unification and finding something common for boys and girls. The ad undermined the cultural assumption about distinct gender roles by having the children play together with the same toy. By doing this, the ad shows the children are not as different from each other as society
Second I went to Target while in this store I took some time and looked around a bit to take in all that they have to offer for toys. As I look in the aisle it came to my attention that they were very much close together all the store was all in one spot and easy to find. On the aisle they were listed very well some has things that said educational toys, toddles, and games. When looking down the aisles you could see how they setup their toys for girls and boys like one side would be boys with action figures and the other side would have Barbie and stuff to dress them up with. One thing that I did not find was a toy that could be or both genders they pretty much just had one or the other and the only way you could tell you was in the boy or girl section was just by the colors of the toys is all really. So if someone was to walk into a store to find a toy for gender-neutral they would have to really take some time and look for them that would be suitable for both genders. I feel would children could learn from these toy is that there are boys toy and girl’s toys and they are to play with their own kind of
Women – beautiful, strong matriarchal forces that drive and define a portion of the society in which we live – are poised and confident individuals who embody the essence of determination, ambition, beauty, and character. Incomprehensible and extraordinary, women are persons who possess an immense amount of depth, culture, and sophistication. Society’s incapability of understanding the frame of mind and diversity that exists within the female population has created a need to condemn the method in which women think and feel, therefore causing the rise of “male-over-female” domination – sexism. Sexism is society’s most common form of discrimination; the need to have gender based separation reveals our culture’s reluctance to embrace new ideas, people, and concepts. This is common in various aspects of human life – jobs, households, sports, and the most widespread – the media. In the media, sexism is revealed through the various submissive, sometimes foolish, and powerless roles played by female models; because of these roles women have become overlooked, ignored, disregarded – easy to look at, but so hard to see.
The average American is exposed to hundreds of advertisements per day. Advertisements targeted toward females have an enormous effect on women's thoughts, attitudes, perceptions, and actions. Most of the time, women don't even realize these advertisements are formulating self-image issues. These ideals surround them daily and they become naturalized to the ads. Advertising creates an entire worldview persuading women to emulate the images they see all around them. In order to create a market for their products, companies constantly prey upon women's self esteem, to feel like they aren't good enough just the way they are. This makes women constantly feel stressed out about their appearance (Moore). Advertising has a negative effect on women's body image, health, and self-esteem.
This research can help understand which marketing techniques are most frequently used, as well as understanding which ones are most successful. It will also help aid in the development of psychology that comes along with the formation of mainstream homogonous views and opinions. Women who are exposed to more advertisements may be more inclined to incorporate items featured in the advertisements...