Who run the world? Girls! - A quantitative study of the effect of femvertising on women

Sammanfattning: Femvertising is a relatively new concept referring to female empowerment advertising. It has gained not only more attention and exposure within advertising (e.g. Dove's Real Beauty, Always' Like A Girl, and Lindex' Bravolution), but has also proven to be financially effective for firms. Femvertising encompasses the use of both non-idealised female models as well as non-stereotypical female roles in advertising. This thesis seeks to examine the effect of femvertising on firms and women, mostly focusing on the latter to see if there are any positive extended effects in society. More specifically, it seeks to study the effects of femvertising on firms by looking at ad and brand attitude, and on women's self-perception. Drawing on research and theory about female stereotypes and the effects of its use, it is hypothesised that the use of femvertising will increase women's attitudes towards the brands, as well as their own levels of self-esteem, self-efficacy, body image, and willingness to help. Based on the theory of the third person effect, it is also hypothesised that women will be positively affected by femvertising due to the third person perception, i.e. the supposed positive view of femvertising by others (women and men). This perception should then moderate any changes in a woman's self-perception, hence the term third person effect. Two studies were conducted, one about the use of non-idealised female models, and the other about the use of non-stereotypical roles, each focusing on specific variables. Results show that femvertising in both studies has a positive impact on firms in terms of ad and brand attitude. But when it comes to self-perception, there is only support of it positively influencing women in terms of self-esteem when exposed to non-idealised models. Willingness to help was also greater after exposure to femvertising. It did not show any effect on self-efficacy or body image. In addition, the third person effect was concluded to not be an explanatory factor to changes in the variables studied.