Magdalena Zawisza, PhD; The University of Winchester &

1. IAREP Conference , Rome, 5 Sept 2008 Who Cares About Dads In Ads And Why? Gender Similarities And Differences In Effectiveness and Elaboration Of Advertisements Which Use (non)traditional Male Portrayals. Magdalena Zawisza, PhD; The University of Winchester & Marco Cinnirella, PhD; Royal Holloway, University of London Research sponsored by Thomas Holloway & RKT Researcher Grants

2. Research questions Three main research questions were investigated: • Which ads (traditional vs non-traditional) are more effective? • What is the role of gender attitudes in the effectiveness of gendered ads? • Who elaborates such advertisements and why? • Traditionals or Liberals? • Women or Men?

3. Early theorising(Fiske & Stevens, 1993; Eagly, Mladanic & Otto, 1991) Any diversion from the prescriptive element of traditional gender stereotype will result in negative responses. Prediction: Bm > Hh Recent theorising(Fiske, Cuddy, Glick & Xu, 2002) What really matters is not so much breaking (gender) stereotypes but their content Exemplars of paternalistic stereotypes are liked more (but respected less) than exemplars of envious ones Prediction: Bm<Hh 1. Which ads are more effective?- predicting main Ad Type effects (AT)

4. Warmth Competence (mixed/ ambivalent) Stereotype Content Model (Fiske, et al. 2002; Clausell & Fiske, 2005; Cuddy, Fiske & Glick, 2008) Househusband (Hh) Housewife Paternalistic stereotypes Admiration stereotypes Envious stereotypes Contemptuous stereotypes Businessman (Bm) Businesswoman

5. 1. Which ads are more effective?- predicting main Ad Type effects (AT) • Given that: • series of past research shows the applicability of the SCM over traditional theorising on gender to advertising context (Zawisza, 2006) • Hh type is an example of paternalistic stereotype which is liked (but not respected) (Eckes, 2002), and that • Ad liking has been identified as one of the most important factors in ad effectiveness (Du Plessis, 2005), • We propose a Stereotype Content Hypothesis: • H1: Non-traditinal ad strategies (paternalistic Hh portrayals) will be more effective than traditional ones (envious Bm portrayals) (H1: Hh > Bm)

6. 2. What is the role of gender attitudes in ad effectiveness?- predicting AT x GA interaction • Previous research hasreturned inconsistent results where gender-related variables were found: • predictive of ad effectiveness by some researchers(Ford & Latour, 1993; Jaffe, 1991, 1992; Morrison & Shaffer, 2003) but • not predictive of ad effectiveness by others(Bellizzi & Milner, 1991; Garst & Bodenhousen, 1997; Zawisza, 2006) • However, Social Judgement Theory(Sherif & Hovland, 1961) suggests that if the ad uses a counter-attitudinal appeal, it could be rejected, which will in turn decrease the ad effectiveness. Therefore we propose The Match Hypothesiswhich predicts Ad Type x Gender Attitude interaction: • H2: Liberals will prefer Progressive (Hh) ads while Traditionals will favour Traditional ones. H2a: Tr: Bm>Hh & H2b: Lb: Hh>Bm

7. 3. 1. Who elaborates such ads to a greater extent: Traditionals or Liberals? - testing AT x GA x AS interaction • Watch-dog hypothesis (Devine, 1989) • Liberal individuals elaborate message from stigmatised source to a greater extent than Traditional ones (as they want to prevent prejudice). • Petty, White & Flaming (1999) confirmed Watch-dog H. for stigmatised minority sources(Afro-Americans and Homosexuals). • Non-traditional males are also stigmatised (Brescoll & Uhlmann, 2005; Rost, 2002) Thus the Watch-dogHypothesis here predicts Ad Type x Gender Attitude x Argument Strength interaction: • H3: Liberals should elaborate the ‘non-traditional’ ads to a greater extent (higher thoughts number) when the arguments in it are weak • than when they are strong (H3a:Lib: Hh: W>S) • than Traditionals (H3b: Hh:W: Lib>Trad)

8. 3. 2. Who elaborates such advertisements and why: Liberal Men or Women? – testing the moderating role of gender • Meyers-Levy ‘s (1989) Selectivity Hypothesis suggests that: • M & W have different processing strategies: M are ‘selective (heuristic) processors’ and W are ‘comprehensive processors’ • Thus, the elaboration threshold for women is higher than for men. • This gender difference in processing has been demonstrated in: • children and adults alike (McGivern et al., 2002) and • in advertising (Putrevu, 2001, 2004). Thus we propose gender is a moderator of the watch-dog hypothesis such that: • H4: The elaboration processes described by the watch-dog hypothesis will only emerge for W but not M.

9. Ad Bm1/Bm2 (self-paced) Number of Thoughts Ad and Brand responses Methods & Procedures Instructions, Demographics & Consent • Sample • N = 214 (students) • 108 F &106 M • Average age 21 • 72% white British • 47% studied psychology • Mixed Factorial Design • 2 (Ad Type) - WS • x2 (Argument Strength) - WS • x2 (Gender Attitude)- BS • Analysis • Mixed 3 way ANOVA separately for M & W Ad Hh1/Hh2 (self-paced) Number of Thoughts Ad and Brand responses Attitudes & Ambivalence to Men Debrief

10. Progressive (Hh) Traditional (Bm) Stimuli • Pre-selection: • Ads: competence & warmth, traditional vs progressive; feminine vs masculine roles and attractiveness • Arguments: 4 strong and 4 weak; • Products: low-involving and unisex • Manipulation checks: Ad Type and Arguments Strength confirmed

11. Outcomes: Stereotype Content & Match Hypotheses - Ad Effectiveness: affect, cognitions & PI Affect: AT_W: F(1,67)=6.641, p <.01 AT:_M: F(1,77)=8.52, p<.01 AT x GA: ns Judgments: AT_W: F(1,67)=13.346, p <.001 AT_M: F(1,77)=13.137, p<.001 AT x GA: ns Purchase Intent: no sign. effects but PI correlated positively and sign with Affect and Judgement (rs>.56)

12. Outcomes: Watchdog & Selectivity Hypotheses - Ad Elaboration: number of thoughts Women Sign ATxGAxAS interaction for W on Thought #: F(1,65)=16.622, p <.001: Lib: Hh: W>S, p<.004 & Hh:W:Lib>Trad, p<.001 Men Ns ATxGAxAS interaction for M on Thought #: F(1,75)=1.546, p =.218:

13. Conclusions • Support for SCM: Hh portrayals (paternalistic stereotypes) are more effective than Bm (envious stereotypes) in terms of ad affect and judgements for both genders • Support for Watch-dog h: Liberals elaborate messages from Hh to a greater extent than Traditionals • Support for Selectivity Hypothesis: the Watchdog h. held for women only, who, being ‘comprehensive processors’, have higher elaboration threshold compared to men who are ‘heuristic’ processors

14. Practical Implications • Non-traditional ad strategies involving male characters can be more effective than the traditional ones for both men and women. • Using genderattitudestopredict the effectiveness of gendered ads may be problematic. Thus: • other, less sensitive to egalitarian norms, gender related concepts should be used (e.g. gender identity) • Ads targeted at Liberal women should use central as well as simple cues for persuasion (since the non-traditional male gender role ad messages were elaborated to higher extent by this group)

15. Limitations & Further Directions • Student sample – may be more egalitarian then the general sample and thus the watch-dog hypothesis may not hold for less egalitarian women. • Female gender role attitudes and stereotypes - there is some evidence that non-traditional males are stigmatised to greater extent then non-traditional females. Thus the watch-dog hypothesis, which depends on the strength of egalitarian norms, may not hold for non-traditional ad types featuring female characters. • Manipulationof involvement – the outcomes here may not hold for high-involving products where simple cues (AT, GA) may play little role • SCMpredictions – envious stereotypes may be more effective with high-involving products where respecting (and not so much liking) the model could be more desirable

16. Thank you