August 19, 2019

Following a consultation on the harm of gender stereotyping in ads, CAP introduced new rules, which came into force on 14 June 2019. Rules 4.9 (CAP Code) and 4.14 (BCAP Code) state that ads “must not include gender stereotypes that are likely to cause harm, or serious or widespread offence“.

Accompanying guidance on depicting gender stereotypes, sets out five areas which seeks to explain how advertising might fall foul of the new rule:

1. Gender stereotypical roles and characteristics: advertisers should take care that ads do not suggest that stereotypical roles or characteristics are associated with just one gender.
2. Pressure to conform to an idealised gender stereotypical body shape or physical features: ads should take care to avoid suggesting that an individual’s happiness or emotional wellbeing should depend on conforming to an idealised gender-stereotypical body shape or physical features.
3. Aimed at or featuring children: ads can be targeted at and feature a specific gender but should take care not to explicitly convey that a particular children’s product, pursuit, activity, including choice of play or career, is inappropriate for one or another gender.
4. Featuring potentially vulnerable people: ads should be sensitive to the emotional and physical well-being of vulnerable groups of people who may be under pressure to conform to particular gender stereotypes.
5. Where ads feature people who don’t conform to a gender stereotype: they should avoid mocking people for not conforming to gender stereotypes, including where this is intended to be humorous.

This week saw three ASA adjudications that tested the gender stereotyping rule, with ads for Volkswagen and Philadelphia being banned. The Philadelphia TV ad, which received 128 complaints, showed two floundering Dads choosing Philadelphia-topped bagels over responsible childcare. Noticing the neglected babies circulating a conveyor belt, one of the Dads retrieves his child and says “don’t tell Mum“. The Volkswagen ad received three complaints from people who felt the ad depicted men engaging dangerous activities while women were seen in more care-giving roles.

Both Mondelez, Philadelphia’s parent company, and Volkswagen presented arguments in support of their ads: Mobdelez suggested that their ad was humorous, showing parents finding the cream cheese so delicious they were distracted from parenting and Volkswagen arguing that their ad’s core message was the ability of the human spirit to adapt, with none of the roles shown to be stereotypical to one gender or the other.

Clearcast also defended both ads: suggesting there was nothing in the Philadelphia ad which was particular to fathers being unable to look after their babies (as opposed to new parents generally) and that the Volkswagen ad was balanced, showing men and women in a variety of roles.

Separately, there was also an ad for Buxton water which was also investigated. Five people complained about an ad showing three characters – a female ballerina, a male drummer and a male rower – practicing their different skills. The ASA considered the complaints, which questioned whether the ad perpetuated harmful gender stereotypes by contrasting the men and the woman doing activities that they considered were stereotypically associated with each gender, but decided to side with Buxton water’s owner, Nestle, concluding that the ad featured real people, who were all high achievers, none of whom were defined by their gender.

There has been much commentary on these decisions already this week – much of it criticising the ASA for going too far in its interpretation of the rule, with some commentators suggesting that the brands should seek an independent review of the decisions. I fully agree that this rule is going to have far-reaching implications for advertisers and their creative agencies and that the ASA has also set out its stall with these decisions, but let’s take a moment to remind ourselves of the background to the new rule. The evidence gathered by the ASA during the project it launched in 2016 suggested that gender inequality leads to “real-world harms for adults and children. These unequal outcomes might affect different people in a variety of practical, social, emotional and economic ways” and that evidence demonstrates that “reinforcing and perpetuating traditional gender roles can lead to suboptimal outcomes for individuals and groups in terms of their professional attainment and personal development“. To me, that all sounds like pretty serious stuff and should be something that the industry is happy to play its part in addressing.

Personally, I think the ASA has got this right. The Philadelphia ad clearly presents a situation that the ASA had expressly warned against: “an ad that depicts a man or a woman failing to achieve a task specifically because of their gender e.g. a man’s inability to change nappies; a woman’s inability to park a car” is likely to be “unacceptable“. For me, it was the Volkswagen ad that required a bit more consideration (and a review of the ad in question rather than just reading the decision or other commentary). Whilst I agree that the ad shows a variety of roles, all of which could be undertaken by men or women, the guidance expressly states that “An ad that depicts a man being adventurous juxtaposed with a woman being delicate or dainty is unlikely to be acceptable“. Whilst Volkswagen argued the ad showed men and women together, camping on a cliff-edge and carrying out tasks in space, the reality was that these adventurous tasks were undertaken and led by men, with the women playing a ‘blink and you’d miss it’ role. It was the extraordinary and adventurous element of these scenes that was highlighted and this was done by men. As the on-screen text reinforced this, “When we learn to adapt…we can achieve anything“, the final scene, in juxtaposition with the others, showed a woman sitting on a bench, reading with a pram by her side, as the Volkswagen car passed by. Whether this scene was included to highlight the extraordinary, no doubt very quiet nature of the electric car or was intended to suggest that becoming a parent was also a life changing experience that required significant adaptation, I am not sure. However, there is no doubt in my mind that the overall message that is reinforced is that men undertake, or at least lead, adventurous tasks whereby they achieve, in contrast with women who care for children– I, and perhaps the ASA, might have felt differently if prior to the on-screen text, women had been visibly undertaking tasks or if the last scene had shown a man with a pram.

As with the introduction of any new rules and guidance, we will need more time to pass, more ads to be shown and more complaints to be made, to really understand where the lines are drawn with regards to harmful gender stereotypes in ads. My initial reaction to the Volkswagen ruling and then subsequent consideration of the actual ad only highlighted for me the need to view the ad “as a whole and in context” (see guidance). Another important part of the process is to consider stereotypes “from the perspective of the group of individuals being stereotyped” (see guidance). In doing so, I conclude that both banned ads do, on the whole, have the potential to cause harm by inviting assumptions that might negatively restrict how people see themselves and how they are seen by others. With this in mind, I would be very interested to see the gender split of the people that agree and disagree with the ASA on this one.