Groundbreaking study in partnership with ANA’s SeeHer concludes that closing the gender gap in advertising is good for business
CANNES, France — IRI®, a global leader in innovative solutions and services for consumer, retail, and media companies, today revealed the results of a study into the social and financial incentives associated with the depiction of women and girls in advertising campaigns. IRI partnered with the Association of National Advertisers’ (ANA) SeeHer movement to determine if an accurate and positive portrayal of women in advertising could drive incremental sales lift, impact consumer behavior, result in a sale or drive a shopping trip and, critically, if these changes occur with the depth and speed required in today’s accelerated marketplace. The work was done across categories for six SeeHer members: Anheuser-Busch, Clorox, Hershey, Kellogg’s, Keurig Dr. Pepper and L’Oréal.
The study linked the depiction of women to offline sales by leveraging SeeHer’s Gender Equality Measure (GEM™) score, an index of 100 representing consumer reaction to the treatment of women in advertising and programming, with IRI’s media measurement and optimization solution IRI Lift™.
The results conclusively demonstrated a direct correlation between higher GEM™ scores and incremental sales lift:
· Ads with the highest sales lift had the highest GEM™ scores, whereas ads with the lowest sales lift had the lowest GEM™ scores.
· Creatives with GEM™ scores greater than 100 drove sales lifts up to five times higher than ads with scores less than 100.
· Television programs with GEM™ scores greater than 100 drove sales lift nearly two times higher than programs with GEM™ scores of less than 100.
· When ads with the highest GEM™ scores are incorporated into programs with high GEM™ scores, the resulting incremental sales lift is higher still.
“IRI is pleased to partner with SeeHer to increase accurate portrayals of women and girls in U.S. advertising,” said Jennifer Pelino, senior vice president of the IRI Media Center for Excellence. “As the results of our study show, in addition to the powerful social incentives of supporting the SeeHer movement, there is meaningful financial upside for marketers who consider GEM™ scores in planning the content and context of their ads.”
“Our GEM™ metric has added a new dimension for evaluating ads for gender equality,” said Shelley Zalis, SeeHer co-founder and CEO, The Female Quotient. “We can now directly correlate positive GEM™ scores with increased purchase intent and actual sales lift.”
Women are industry influencers for both the messages produced and the buying power they command. Study results amplify the pressure on marketers to join the growing SeeHer movement by uncovering newfound financial incentives associated with higher GEM™ scores. This groundbreaking initiative shows the impact of marketing efforts made to more effectively speak to women through advertising, which has resulted in improvements to the bottom line and greater equality in media.
GEM™ is a trademark of the ANA. GEM™ scores for this study were provided by SeeHer and were generated by SeeHer syndicated research partner ABX.
About IRI
IRI is a leading provider of big data, predictive analytics and forward-looking insights that help CPG, OTC health care organizations, retailers and media companies to grow their businesses. With the largest repository of purchase, media, social, causal and loyalty data, all integrated on an on-demand, cloud-based technology platform, IRI helps to guide its more than 5,000 clients around the world in their quests to remain relentlessly relevant, capture market share, connect with consumers and deliver market-leading growth. A confluence of major external events — a revolution in consumer buying, big data coming into its own, advanced analytics and automated consumer activation — is leading to a seismic shift in drivers of success in all industries. Ensure that your business can leverage data at www.iriworldwide.com.
About SeeHer
Despite the strides made to accurately portray women and girls in media, an unconscious bias persists against women and girls in advertising, media and programming. The ANA (Association of National Advertisers) launched the SeeHer initiative in June 2016 in a partnership with The Female Quotient (TFQ) at the United State of Women Summit. SeeHer’s mission is to accurately portray all women and girls in media so that they can see themselves reflected as they truly are–and so that the world can see them with 20/20 vision. SeeHer’s goal is to increase the accurate portrayals of women and girls in media by 20 percent by 2020. The group developed a Gender Equality Measure (GEM™) to track progress and the marketing effect of removing unconscious bias from ads and programming. High GEM™ scores directly correlate to improved ROI. GEM™ won the 2017 ESOMAR Research Effectiveness Award. The methodology became the industry standard in the U.S., which led to a global rollout in 2018. For more information, visit www.SeeHer.com, and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @SeeHer2020.
About the Association of National Advertisers (ANA)
The ANA (Association of National Advertisers) makes a difference for individuals, brands, and the industry by driving growth, advancing the interests of marketers, and promoting and protecting the well-being of the marketing community. Founded in 1910, the ANA provides leadership that advances marketing excellence and shapes the future of the industry. The ANA’s membership includes more than 1,700 companies with 25,000 brands that engage almost 150,000 industry professionals and collectively spend or support more than $400 billion in marketing and advertising annually. The membership is comprised of more than 1,000 client-side marketers and more than 700 marketing solutions provider members, which include leading marketing data science and technology suppliers, ad agencies, law firms, consultants, and vendors. Further enriching the ecosystem is the work of the nonprofit ANA Educational Foundation (AEF), which has the mission of enhancing the understanding of advertising and marketing within the academic and marketing communities. For more information, visit www.ana.net, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, or join us on Facebook.
