ABX Advisory

Last month's ABX Advisory post, "Positive Portrayals of Females in Ads leads to Financial Gain," announced the major leaps forward advertisers are making in the respectful portrayal of women in advertising.  A 2019 ABX longitudinal survey showed an increase in the presence of women in ads, an increase in understanding as to what makes an ad "appropriate," and a decrease in tolerance for ads that are "inappropriate."  Even more exciting, ABX research shows it is possible to increase sales to women by 45% by depicting females properly in advertising.  Today, we will look at top ABX Gender Equality Index ads in the UK, Germany, Japan and the US to see what is working in each.

The respectful portrayal of women in advertising has made major leaps forward according to a longitudinal survey by Advertising Benchmark Index. Other major associations that are promoting female gender equality also report the same terrific progress.  So, if you want to increase sales to women by 45%, read on!

Last month, we listed the Top Five Super Bowl ads by how women were portrayed, and saw how those who treated women well also impacted their ad effectiveness. We also quoted Jack Neff of AdAge, who wrote that female gender scores did improve a little this year over last.  Now, let's look at five spots with poor female images according to the ABX Gender Equality Index™, and see what we can learn.

Everyone's asking, "how did women do in the Super Bowl ads this year?"  "Did they appear empowered?" "Are they shown with respect?" The good news, according to Jack Neff of AdAge, female gender scores did improve a little this year over last.  But, there's still a ways to go.  Meanwhile, here are the top five ads by the ABX Gender Equality Index™ for Females.

Today's post debuts a new series, "ABX takes on the Media," by challenging ads designated as "Hot." Ads cited by popular ad pundits will be subjected to ABX advertising effectiveness testing to see how they really work. Today's post compares June Olay and Macy's ads to see how they portray women.  If you're interested in more about ad effectiveness, or about gender equality, click the links for resources pages.

The new imperative for advertisers and marketers is to impact Reputation and CTAs through gender equality in advertising.  Besides the social implications, gender equality is just good business.  Today's focus is how this plays out in Insurance Advertising.  For more information on the studies behind this movement, see our resources page on gender equality in advertising.

ABX Joins the ANA, AFE and Others to Introduce the new Gender Equality Measure™ (GEM)