Gendered Storytelling : A normative evaluation of gender differences in terms of decoding a message or theme in storytelling

Sammanfattning: Background: The portrayal of men and women in various contexts and genderedrelated research is a field of interest that has been extensively dealt with for more than three decades. Still, an acknowledgement of the “truth” is far from being attained. In marketing, the power of storytelling has revolutionized the way stories are used in business practice. This research focus on gender differences in marketing by adding storytelling as a parameter. Purpose: This thesis was conducted to investigate if men and women's perceptions differ in terms of decoding elements in a story. The purpose was answered by two research questions: (1) Do men and women’s perceptions differ in terms of decoding a message or theme in storytelling? (2) If so, what elements plays major roles? Method: This thesis takes on a triangulation method and uses an interpretivist research paradigm with a deductive research approach to explore the purpose. This was a qualitative study where primary data was collected using two qualitative research methods, and secondary data from peer-reviewed articles containing relevant theories to this research. Conclusion: The conclusion is made that if marketers aims to target women, they should focus to create a highly emotional story that contains sentimental elements and shows the importance of family, relationships and love. If they want to target the male audience, they should focus on creating a story that includes a character that is distinctly portrayed as a hero, information is told clearly and straight away where the males easily can identify the mission and, also emphasize statistics and status.