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This paper identifies consumer reactions towards female empowerment in advertising in order to explore the supporting arguments for criticisms of lack of authenticity and the figuring of sexist stereotypes.

The authors conducted a multi-case study research with content analysis of 905 coded online comments in a video hosting website towards four femvertising campaigns.

Results indicate that femvertising plays an important role in the emotional connection between women and brands, but consumers may react negatively to femvertising when brands do not show knowledge about the real feminist values, maintaining sexist stereotypes. Consumers also blame companies of hypocrite and exploitation to sell products if there is not authenticity and brand-cause fit.

Femvertising appears as a consequence of cultural changes and corporate social responsibility in order to engage women consumers. This paper contributes with explanations to sustain the dichotomic reactions towards femvertising, showing evidence of why some people react favourably and other people react negatively.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a clear understanding of the use of femvertising in Lebanon and its effects on consumers in general.

Data was collected using an online survey questionnaire, administered to a random sample of 318 individuals. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses.

Lebanese people positively perceive the implication of women empowerment in advertisement. Gender, trust in ads, support of women’s rights and feminist self-identification, all have an impact on consumer behavior toward femvertising. However, the educational level and age do not affect the attitudes toward femvertising.

The practical contributions of our research derive from the importance of our findings on the uniqueness of the knowledge and information in the Middle East region. The importance of increasing knowledge of gender roles and Marketing in the Middle East is highly related to the gender dynamics embedded within broader globalization debates.

While studies have been extensive on the utilization of femvertising as a marketing strategy, the contexts under which these studies have been published, are mainly focused in the West. Hence, the Middle East in general and Lebanon, in particular, has witnessed no comprehensive and serious research on the subject. Consequently, this study is considered important and a major step toward establishing a theoretical base and underpinnings on the subject of utilization of femvertising in brands’ marketing strategies.

Existing research demonstrates that consumers prefer advertising that aligns with their values and beliefs but can also be distrustful of claims of corporate social responsibility. The purpose of this paper is to explore consumers’ perceptions of femvertising in relation to their worldview. Femvertising is defined as “advertising that employs pro-female talent, messages, and imagery to empower women and girls” (Skey, 2015).

A survey of US adults (n = 419) was used to investigate attitudes toward femvertising as they relate to gender, age, support for women’s rights, feminist self-identification, political affiliation and trust in advertising.

Structural equation modeling revealed several antecedents and consequences of attitude toward femvertising. The findings suggest that women’s rights supporters and self-identifying feminists seem highly receptive of femvertising.

Taken together, the findings clarify how femvertising can be an effective strategy for marketers and how it fits within the current advertising literature.

This purpose of this study was to investigate how consumers’ degree of rurality and preference for specific ad types are associated with their attitude toward femvertising (pro-female advertising).

An online survey of US-based respondents over 18 years of age was administered by Qualtrics Panels from February 7 to February 15, 2018. The final sample included 418 respondents.

The more urban the respondents’ location was, the more educated they were, leading to more support for gender equality but not a more positive attitude to femvertising. Liking of ads described as “funny,” “with a message” and “emotional” was associated with a more positive attitude toward femvertising.

The findings were limited by the use of a convenience sample and the limited variance in participants’ rurality owing to the prevalence of respondents based in or near metropolitan areas. Future research should seek to understand how, if at all, femvertising has affected rather than only reflected social change across a variety of cultural settings.

Marketers can expect femvertising appeals to be relatively effective across the rural–urban divide. Femvertising campaigns should consider using or continue to use humor, inspiration/moral reasoning, and emotion in their messages.

The relative lack of controversy surrounding femvertising indicates gender equality may be embraced across social divides, possibly because in the current economic environment, women’s empowerment is linked to monetary gains for both companies and households.

As the demand for companies to take a stance regarding socially charged issues increases, there is a critical need to understand the factors that impact consumer demand in the context of pro-female messaging. This study expands the literature on the effects of two such factors – rurality and ad type preferences – on attitudes toward advertising promoting egalitarian values. No previous research has investigated the role of these variables in cause-related marketing.

Luxury brands seek to differentiate themselves from competitors by engaging in corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. Although many luxury brands participate in CSR activities, it is unclear if luxury brands communicate these CSR activities to consumers. Therefore, this study aims to explore two questions: are luxury jewelry brands communicating CSR (including women’s empowerment) in their advertising? And how should luxury jewelry brands communicate CSR messages in their advertising?

This paper uses a content analysis of luxury jewelry print advertisements and in-depth interviews with 20 female jewelry consumers analyzed using grounded theory to construct the luxury brand CSR advertising strategies theory.

Very few (3%) of print advertisements contain CSR messages, including femvertising and the theory presents four paths for brands to consider when promoting CSR practices, namely, ethical sourcing, cause-related marketing product, a signal of product care and quality and signal of an authentic relationship with the consumer.

The model provides four potential CSR advertising strategies and guidelines luxury jewelry brands can use to create successful advertising campaigns.

Luxury jewelry advertising has not been empirically examined and the study fills gaps in the understanding of luxury brands’ communication strategies. It adds to the knowledge and theorizing of the use and appropriateness of CSR appeals in a luxury brand context.

This paper aims to explore how and why ideas regarding “intersectional” approaches to feminism and Black activism are drawn on in marketing content related to the concept of being “woke” (invested in addressing social injustices). It considers which subject positions are represented as part of this and what they reveal about contemporary issues concerning advertising, gender, race and activism.

This study involves an interpretive and critical discursive analysis of so-called feminist advertising (“femvertising”) and marketing examples that make use of Black social justice activist ideas.

Findings illuminate how marketing simultaneously enables the visibility and erasure of “intersectional”, feminist and Black social justice activist issues, with the use of key racialised and gendered subject positions: White Saviour, Black Excellence, Strong Black Woman (and Mother) and “Woke” Change Agent.

This research signals how brands (mis)use issues concerning commercialised notions of feminism, equality and Black social justice activism as part of marketing that flattens and reframes liberationist politics while upholding the neoliberal idea that achievement and social change requires individual ambition and consumption rather than structural shifts and resistance.

This work can aid the development of advertising standards regulatory approaches which account for nuances of stereotypical representations and marketing’s connection to intersecting issues regarding racism and sexism.

This research outlines a conceptualisation of the branding of “woke” bravery, which expands our understanding of the interdependency of issues related to race, gender, feminism, activism and marketing. It highlights marketing responses to recent socio-political times, which are influenced by public discourse concerning movements, including Black Lives Matter and Me Too.

In light of the recent shift in the US culture, this paper investigates the effectiveness of female sexual empowerment as ad appeal in the apparel industry.

Study 1 aimed to understand consumers' reactions to female sexual empowerment in ads in terms of their attitudes toward the ad, attitudes toward the brand and purchase intention. Study 2 investigated the role of gender in perceptions of female sexual empowerment in ads.

This research establishes that consumers display positive attitudes toward female sexual empowerment in the apparel advertisement. These attitudes positively influence attitudes toward the brand, which in turn improve purchase intention. These effects are stronger for women than men.

This research borrows from social power theory to reveal the impact of female sexual empowerment in ads in the apparel industry. Based on the theory of planned behavior, the findings also show that female sexual empowerment can have a positive impact on purchase intention through a serial mediation of attitude toward the ad and brand.

Marketers need to be aware of the impact of female sexual empowerment as ad appeal. Specifically, firms in the apparel industry could benefit from the positive effects of incorporating female sexual empowerment in their campaigns.

This research is the first to investigate the role of female sexual empowerment as ad appeal in improving consumers' responses to ads.

This paper aims to the precise critical interpretation of gender roles portrayed in the three selected TV advertisements shown in Bangladesh.

The analysis begins with the theoretical framework of gender roles analysis here in this paper: Goffman’s gender stereotypes hypothesis which is used to identify and analyse the thematic features present in the ads. After critically examining the hypothesis, Kress and Van Leeuwen’s systemic functional analysis framework is used to analyse the semiotic feature to interpret the signs and symbols. After that, Fairclough’s stylistic analysis of discourse analysis is used to find out these features in the advertisements to search the cultural, political implications. Finally, the paper uses Pope’s The Rape of the Lock and it is Cultural-Ecofeminist Analysis of Francois d’Eaubonne.

This paper tries to connect with the above-mentioned frameworks from a contextual point of view to predict the future progression of the gender representations and their implications in the coming years to check whether the changes in gender roles are reflected in the society or not.

Both in houses and workplaces, women empowerment, more female entrepreneurs in the working forces will bring out a change in the minds of people about the stereotypes and make more women inclusive and the women-friendly environment in Bangladesh and South Asian Countries.

This paper aims to assess the impact of perceived effort related to packaging on overall product evaluations. Perceived effort, defined as the consumer’s perceptions of how much manufacturer effort that lies behind an offer, is assumed to contribute to evaluations by signaling unobservable characteristics of an offer.

Three between-subjects experiments were conducted with soft drink bottles, which were subject to variation in perceived effort.

The results show that perceived effort was positively associated with overall evaluations. The results also show that the impact of perceived effort was mediated by product quality perceptions, which indicates that effort signals quality.

Perceived effort has to date not been examined in the packaging literature. The present findings thus imply that models of packaging characteristics and their impact on consumers would benefit from including the effort aspect.

This study explores the effect of gender stereotyping and issue advocacy on consumer sentiment toward advertising and brands.

Drawing from the literature, the study hypothesizes about the impact of gender stereotyping and consumer advocacy on consumer sentiment. A behavioral experiment tests the hypotheses and provides support for the main conclusions.

Results indicate that issue advocacy can cancel the negative effect of traditional female stereotyping. The results also show that demographics are not necessarily the reason why a person favors or condemns stereotyping and advertising; on the contrary, any reaction is far more linked to personal disposition.

The findings of this research have implications for marketing and advertising practice. While the use of issue advocacy is currently trending up, there is still a lack of understanding about its effect on consumers. Gender stereotyping is also being frequently used, but has caused huge backlashes in recent ad campaigns. Marketing and advertising managers can use insights from this research to shape advertising messages that use these two stimuli in order to enable a brand to better connect with its audience and achieve a more desirable outcome.

The paper contributes to the academic discussion about the effectiveness of using gender stereotyping and issue advocacy to drive advertising outcomes. It challenges the idea that the combination of these two advertising approaches is either detrimental or beneficial to the brand.