Abstract
Sexism is a complex construct since authors have different notions to present about the topic. Some of them state that sexism is the actions of prejudice based on gender. Therefore, to understand the evolution of sexism in advertising, we should focus on a niche that is provided by the emotional appeals: sexual appeal. The consequences of these stereotypes range from affecting female self-image to misogynistic teachings to which female, male, and child sex are exposed in the ads in question. In today's society, feminists, activists, consumers, and some media have been expressing concern about the sexist representation of women in advertising. In an exploratory and conceptual perspective, this chapter presents contributions for communication, marketing, and publicity around the phenomenon of sexism.
TopSocial Marketing
Social marketing directs its focus to society. According to Kotler, it is defined as the design, implementation, and control of programs that aim to increase the acceptance of an idea and/or social project in a target group. As Cardoso and Sousa (2020) stated, it is also possible to define social marketing as a way of strategically managing support for social change in a cause of relevance for the public, seeking to realize the rights of citizens, from an ethical point of view.
However, Andreasen (1994) points out three problems with the definition presented above. In the first place, the author argues that choosing the term “social marketing” could lead people to confuse it with societal marketing. Societal marketing, as opposed to social marketing, seeks to protect individuals through market control, and does not deal with actions intending to behavioural changes, as in the case of social marketing. Then, as Andreasen (1994) points out, in second place, there was a discussion in order to make it clear if the practice of social marketing would be limited, or not, to the public sector and to non-profit organizations. The third problem was that the definition limited the purpose of social marketing solely to the acceptability of social ideas (Cardoso & Sousa, 2020).
Combined with the concept of social marketing, there is the idea of sexism and advertising. Several authors go further and even considers social marketing because of social responsibility, arguing that they depend intrinsically on each other (e.g. Sousa & Soares, 2019). Social responsibility is defined as the “duty and commitment of the company to assume a transparent, responsible, and ethical attitude” in the relations that it maintains with its target group. Mohr et al. (2001) argue that social responsibility actions have positive effects not only for companies, but also for individuals who benefit from them.
According to several authors, the enterprise’s patronage of certain social actions positively stimulates the purchase decision (Andrews et al., 2014; Sousa & Cardoso, 2020) to invest in companies (Sen et al., 2006), posture in relation to firms (Zdravkovic et al., 2010) and word of mouth (Skarmeas & Leonidou, 2013).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Sexism: Is prejudice or discrimination based on a person's sex or gender.
Social media: Is the collective of online communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing, and collaboration (e.g., websites and applications, forums, microblogging, social networking, social bookmarking, social curation, and wikis are among the different types of social media).
Marketing Tools: The techniques and materials used by those who are involved in the promotion of goods and services.
Social Marketing: Is the application of the tools and concepts of commercial marketing to social, health and educational problems.