Killing unconscious bias is the only way to solve advertising’s gender problem

Ahead of International Woman’s Day on Thursday, Kantar TNS’ Anne Rayner considers how drawing attention to unconscious bias is the only answer to finally solving the problem of gender in advertising.

Unconscious bias is – by its very nature – not normally visible when we look around us. When we ask people if they see gender bias, very few do, and even less can think of examples where they’ve experienced it. However, when pointed out through stories or studies, the ‘unconscious’ part is removed, and we can unpick how people feel about the issue.

Some see the bias and want to take action and ensure they don’t behave in this way, others see it but are ambivalent about whether they’d change their behaviour (‘political correctness’ or the loudest voice guiding behaviour but not a real commitment to change); and many deny its existence, finding excuses for the evidence in front of them.

76 percent of women and 71 percent of men believe advertising is not reflective of their gender, and the more that people are exposed to examples or evidence, the more pronounced their reaction becomes.

In one study, we let people read three short stories about mild gender bias, which led to some change in perceptions; and in another study we gave people videos to watch and reports to read that made the gender bias much more real and direct. Here we observed more polarisation of people to advocates for change or deniers of need for change.

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