Does your brain hurt?

Newsletter #27 | Does your brain hurt?

This month we released our 2024 Gender in Advertising Report, an analysis of the current state of representation in advertising.?

Jeremy Bullmore quipped “When CEOs try to think about brands, their brains hurt.” But headache-inducing or not, all CEOs have to think about brands. Brands are fundamentally a platform for scale. Investing in building a strong brand pays dividends for businesses for years to come. Strong brands can command higher prices, better withstand economic turndowns, and achieve success for new products simply because of consumer belief in the brand name.

The importance of brand has grown over time. In 1980 the value of S&P companies was mainly tied up in tangible assets. But by 2010 such assets accounted for 40-45% of market capitalization, the rest was tied up in intangible assets, and more than half of these assets were the brand itself. Brand must be at the forefront of all content decisions. As David Ogilvy stated: “Every advertisement is part of the long-term investment in the personality of the brand.”

In their recent report on brand, Ogilvy and WARC described an ongoing shift in the way brands and marketers have to work to command attention. Brands previously operated as lighthouses, creating a big signal to capture attention. But today with an abundance of media and a dearth of attention, effective brands must operate as flashlights, accompanying people and helping them to define and refine their purchasing decisions.

More than a collection of DBAs?

This shift makes consumer connection and understanding imperative. It’s no longer sufficient to have a catchy jingle or a recognizable logo. 83% of consumers think companies should only be able to earn a profit if they also have a positive impact on society.

Jim Stengel, former CMO of P&G, explored the connection between ideals and growth over a decade ago. But the core tenets of his argument still ring true. Stengel looked at the world’s 50 best businesses and observed a cause-and-effect relationship between their financial performance and their ability to connect with a greater purpose.

For all of the criticism of brand purpose, brands that fail to accurately reflect changes in culture in their content stand to suffer financially. Two-thirds of consumers believe that diversity in advertising is important, and progressive ads have been shown to deliver a 13% uplift in purchase intent and increase credibility by around a third.

Valuable Investment?

Whether intentional or not, as Paul Feldwick argued in Anatomy of a Humbug, it is impossible not to communicate. Failing to accurately represent their consumers and the world around them at best demonstrates a lack of understanding from brands, at worst it communicates something about their fundamental brand values.

Despite Progress, the Gender Gap Persists?

More women than ever are the main breadwinners of their homes. Forbes labeled women over 50 “super consumers” with over $15 trillion in purchasing power. African-American women have the majority ownership in more than 1.5 million businesses with over $42 billion in sales.

But despite the economic importance of these groups, they continue to be overlooked in advertising content. CreativeX’s 2024 Gender in Advertising Report looked at over 30,000 ads supported by $260 million in ad spend from 2023 and found that while there has been an increase in non-stereotypical portrayals of women, this is limited to younger, lighter-skinned women.

Women over the age of 60 were largely unseen, appearing in just 1.5% of ads. When older women did appear, they were twice as likely to be depicted in domestic roles than their male counterparts. Conversely, older men were three times more likely to be shown in leadership roles.

The proportion of stereotypical portrayals also varied significantly when taking into account skin tone. Women with lighter skin tones appeared five times more frequently in professional settings, and seven times more frequently in leadership roles than darker-skinned women. Across the board, women with the darkest skin tones received only 2.6% of brands’ total ad spend, with spend on ads featuring women with darker skin tones decreasing by 9% year-on-year.

Measure to Improve?

As She Runs it president and CEO Lynn Branigan puts it: “Measurement is essential. And we have arrived at a moment in time when meaningful change is possible through data. With more data comes more progress.”

CreativeX’s research was carried out using the world’s largest creative database. Big brands have been building creative databases to track content at scale and gain insights into everything from digital suitability to content activation.?

Change doesn’t happen overnight, and it requires ongoing measurement to drive sustainable progress. But if every advertisement is part of the long-term investment into the personality of the brand, companies need visibility into each ad to accurately understand the impression they’re giving.

Thanks for reading!