Gender effects in advertising

Less than 15% of ads are directed specifically to women and less than 5% are intended just for men. The remaining 80% are apparently targeted to everyone.

Gender effects in advertising

Michael F. Cramphorn

add+impact group

Introduction: the (not so) blank slate

Since Aristotle, people have believed that at birth our minds are empty, a virtual blank slate, which will develop through reason and experience. It followed that any so-called gender differences emerged after birth and derived from social and psychological conditioning (Aristotle 350bc; Pinker 2002).

However, the accumulating evidence strongly indicates the contrary. Wechsler had some difficulty finding gender-neutral measures, and regarded the differences in scores between males and females as a ‘nuisance’ (Moir & Jessel 1991). In-utero hormonal flows result in brains that already have...

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