Gender equality in YouTube ads reaches new low

An overview of the speaking time in YouTube ads by gender between 2015 and 2019, broken down by product vertical.

Brands are getting worse at including female voices in their campaigns, according to the latest research from Google and the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. In an analysis of over 2.7m videos uploaded by advertisers on YouTube, women accounted for just 34% of all speaking time. This is down from 37% in 2015 and the lowest level ever recorded.

Consumer packaged goods is the only product vertical that featured women speaking for longer than men, at 57% versus 43% across 2015 to 2019. Food manufacturer Mars has recently made advertising gender equality a priority –...

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