What is the role of Gender in Advertisement: A multiple case study in a socio-cultural context?

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Abstract
Advertisement is an important marketing link without which the overall functions of the business are broken and the overall performance of the business may be hampered. This dissertation focused on how the element of gender in advertisement is dependent upon the culture of the society that the advertisement is focusing upon. The methodology applied in the dissertation is mixed and through a combination of secondary data sources it has been found that the stereotypical gender roles in a society are both impacted by and a factor of influence for the portrayal of gender in the advertisements broadcast in that society.

List of Figures Fig 1: Theoretical Framework

Fig 2: Advertisement for a Concert in Jeddah Fig 3: Cellular Network Advertisement Fig 4: Billboard for Welcoming People into the City

Fig 5: Advertisement in Saudi Arabia for a Pure Female Product Fig 6: Advertisement in India for a Movie Fig 7: Indian Clothing Brand Advertisement Fig 8: Advertisement for Pakistani Movie Fig 9: Advertisement for Stone Age Jeans
Fig 10: Advertisement for a Weekly Soap (USA) Fig 11: Advertisement for a Weekly Soap (USA)

Contents
Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... 3 Chapter One: Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 7 1.1 Research Background.......................................................................................................................... 7 1.2 Explaining Gender ............................................................................................................................... 8 1.3 Gender and Advertisement................................................................................................................. 9 1.4 Methodologies and Previously Done Researches ............................................................................... 9 1.5 Research Aims and Objectives .......................................................................................................... 10 1.6 Research Questions .......................................................................................................................... 11 1.7 Research Scope and Significance ...................................................................................................... 11 1.8 Rationale for Conducting the Research ............................................................................................ 12 Chapter Two: Literature Review ................................................................................................................. 14 2.1 Overview of Advertisement as a Business Function ......................................................................... 14 2.1.1 Advertising Evolution ..................................................................................................................... 17 2.1.2 Models and Theoretical Frameworks of Advertising ..................................................................... 17 2.2 The Element of Gender in the Advertising........................................................................................ 19 2.2.1 The Gendered Strategy .................................................................................................................. 20 2.3 Overview of the notion of culture with respect to researches, society and economic decision making..................................................................................................................................................... 22 2.3.1 Culture and Gender........................................................................................................................ 25 Chapter Three: Research Methodology ...................................................................................................... 27 3.1 Research Approach ........................................................................................................................... 27 3.2 Research Design ................................................................................................................................ 28 3.3 Primary data Collection..................................................................................................................... 28 3.4 Secondary Data Collection ................................................................................................................ 29 3.4.1 Stage One ................................................................................................................................... 29 3.4.2 Stage Two ................................................................................................................................... 29 3.5 Ethical Issues under Consideration ................................................................................................... 33 3.6 Limitations of the Research .............................................................................................................. 34 Chapter Four: Data Analysis ........................................................................................................................ 35 4.1 Gender Roles in the Culture .............................................................................................................. 35 Saudi Arabia ............................................................................................................................................ 35 5

India ........................................................................................................................................................ 38 Pakistan ................................................................................................................................................... 39 United States of America ........................................................................................................................ 40 4.2 Gender Roles in Advertisements ...................................................................................................... 41 Coca Cola................................................................................................................................................. 41 Cadburys Chocolates.............................................................................................................................. 43 Pantene Shampoo ................................................................................................................................... 45 Telecom Commercials ............................................................................................................................. 47 Chapter Five: Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 51 References ................................................................................................................................................... 56 Appendix A: Tabularized Culture Findings with respect to Gender ............................................................ 60

Chapter One: Introduction

1.1 Research Background An effective form of communication, advertising is used to attract readers or viewers attention towards a product or service being offered by a company or an individual (Shah, 2009). The desired outcome is to cause amplified use of a product by endeavouring to propel a particular behaviour in the consumer concerning a saleable offering. Various conventional and modern means are employed for advertising messages such as magazines, newspaper, television, e-mail service, websites etc. Being a highly effective tool of marketing communication advertising has always been part of business through centuries and a multitude of creative techniques have been dynamically active all along for promotion of products and services. One of the most exciting phenomena, advertising, has also been a pivotal point of research in more than a few disciplines such as sociology, social psychology, mass communication, marketing etc. More recently one particular aspect that has fascinated a profusion of attention is the study of advertising for the purpose of gaining insight on the effect that cultural and gender factors have on the value, norms and advertising strategies of the organization and also to study how the stereotypical roles are depicted in advertising. Further to study how design and composition of advertisements create meanings and then as to how they affect the audience and larger society over time (Niaz Ahmed 1996, p. 11). It has been found that advertising, beyond any doubts, occupies a unique status within the economic organization of a modern society, and it doesnt deal only with economic affairs. (Niaz Ahmed 1996, p. 11) Advertising is strongly connected with ideas, attitudes, and values, as it gives them "cultural form through its signifying practices" (Sinclair, 1987). Interestingly however, through the review of literature, it can be noted that research on the role of advertising on a business organization, the impact that this marketing function has on the sales of the organization and on the burden of operations is vast but, the research on the idea of advertising in a more sociologically inclined context is quite less and therefore allows new researchers to input more into the academic pool of knowledge and findings.

It is, therefore, imperative to explore messages in fashion advertising found both in mens and womens magazines to determine how the images play their role in persuading class and gender, and, particularly, how women are being depicted and shown to men in their capacity of being consumers. Hence, this advertising field is considerably important since fashion, that is, fashion advertising, might be a strong factor in shaping cultural views of class, women, and gender. As Thompson (2000) intimates: Advertisements showcase attitudes and ideas; the corresponding power to influence is formidable because advertising can also change values, such as those surrounding the display and meaning of the body. Nowhere is the potency of advertising more evident than in the arena of selling clothing and appearance related commodities (Thompson 2000, p. 178). In the above explanation of advertisement, the author is basically focusing on the power that advertising is observed to have on normal lives of people especially in regards to their purchasing decisions. As will be studied later in the dissertation, another element that has really strong impact on the lives and the behaviours of the individuals of a society is the culture. What this dissertation wants to explore is the power that the presence of some particular culture has on the already existing incorporation of gender in advertising. While the introduction section will be briefly explaining the ideas of gender and advertising, chapter two will be presenting an in depth research of the sociological ideas, particularly culture and the impact that they have on the role of gender in advertising. 1.2 Explaining Gender A well known term, gender, is employed frequently with regard to diverse types of studies which include advertising as well. According to Ellen Friedrichs gender identity is actually the feeling of belonging to a particular group in the society (male, female or transgender). This feeling is actually harnessed by various sociological factors such as family, school and upbringing. Gender, hence, symbolizes for differences between men and women, though these differences are not dependent on merely physical differences, as social and psychical behaviours too are considered and are unavoidably important in the subject. Next is the debate on gender

differences in a particular society and culture, since gender differences hold varied shapes in different cultures, so much so that they seem different even within one culture. According to the social role theory, the sexual division of labour is being argued. The theory states that the different roles that men and women take in the society are actually the sexual division of labour and these role difference lead to the difference in behaviours and expectations of what a particular gender is or is not required to do (Ember Carol R. and Ember Melvin, 2004). 1.3 Gender and Advertisement Advertising is an essential part of media and media influences human society on a universal basis. It affects human perception and opinion. Media and, in particular, advertising produces models that accredit certain behaviour to a particular gender. People are almost bound to consider these models as general, right and true. Commercial ads being shown on television, or in magazines and through other sources are instruments by which gender stereotypes are embedded in our minds (Michaela Rusinova 2010, p. 17). Advertising has been the focus of research and application for several decades however the focus on intercultural advertising is actually a recent development in the advertising literature (Niaz Ahmed, 1996, p. 11). The impact of culture, too, cannot be neglected in advertising field. Rasa Jaktait and Kristina B. Podoski (2008) point out that cultural value affect the consumer behaviour and the marketing strategies for advertising. These are also important on deciding upon the market segmentation and positioning. 1.4 Methodologies and Previously Done Researches This conduction of this research has been done through mostly the focus on secondary data that was available in the form of advertisements of products in different cultures. The basic reason for focusing on secondary data and not primary (studied in depth in chapter three) is because of budget time and authority limitations that prohibited the researcher from actually creating different advertisements for different cultures. A wide-ranging secondary data research was conducted to facilitate understanding into the current situation exclusively focused on the male and female facial care markets. In addition, a far-reaching investigation

was conducted on the past and up- to-date literature on the topics of gender and advertising, and culture and advertising. As the research was focused on the impact of culture on gendered advertisements in four different cultures of the world, to address these issues more aptly and accurately, a wide range of magazines and advertisements from both countries was selected. A newly launched research can never be of any worth unless it successfully manages to encompass, first, all relevant studies, or at least a few important ones out of them, so as to examine and learn what heights the journey of brainstorming and research concerning this topic has already touched, and where is it exactly one needs to start from to support this study to take a few further steps. For example, Fischer and Arnold (1994) study that offers highly valuable research and information concerning gender and advertisements. Similarly, equally enlightening was the experience to go through the studies offered by Milner and Collins (2000), Skelly and Lundstrom (1981) and Meyers-Levy and Sternthal (1991). They all have offered very valuable and thought-provoking materials on the subject by exploring the consumption of males and females, the relationship between gendered advertising and different media, or even the influence ability of gender differences through advertisements, shaping a more sociological point of view (Wolin, 2003). Accordingly, I made it my top concern to first probe into a few important studies that should enlighten me and guide me towards all those complexities that still need to be resolved, or at least ask for a little addition towards resolving them. Hence, as it was significant to first go through various studies already existent on the subject of gender and advertisements, I very painstakingly researched and read materials from as many such studies as was humanly possible for me. 1.5 Research Aims and Objectives It is important to state the reason as to why the research is actually conducting the research. The drive and the curiosity need to be finely defined if the research methodology and the data analysis need to efficiently craft. The aim for conducting this particular research is

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To analyze the impact that sociological factors have on gendered advertisements, mainly culture The objectives for conducting this research then are as follows: i) ii) iii) To analyze the link of advertisement with various sociological factors To specifically explore the element of gender in advertisements Finally to understand whether the effect of culture on gendered advertisements can be empirically modelled for prediction purposes. 1.6 Research Questions The research in all its data collection and its analysis were directed by specific research questions. This was done so that the research does not get lost in generalization and theoretical framework and also so that the analysis reported is actually relevant to the aims and objectives stated. For this research, the following research questions were crafted. i) ii) iii) iv) What are the role, function and importance of advertisement in business? How is gender incorporated in advertisements and what impact do they have? How does culture effect the gender perception and related behaviour in the society? What impact does this relationship between gender and culture have on the advertising functions of organizations? v) Finally, how can advertisers make use of this function to enhance their competitive positioning in the market?

1.7 Research Scope and Significance

The research will basically be looking at the function of advertising from a sociological and marketing perspective and both will be done through the eyes of the organizations focused in the business. The research will not be limited to any specific world markets. As will be studied later in the research methodology section, the research will be focusing upon different cultures and not specific markets. As far as the significance of the dissertation is concerned, it is important to mention that it will be an extremely important one for the purpose of setting academic marks and applications for future uses. The issue of both culture and gender affecting the advertisement function and thus the sales of the organization is extremely important however, the issue has not been brought
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up into the academic studies at a great pace. Advertisement, culture and gender have separately been studied several times but as for these three elements together, the literature present is fairly limited. This research then will be able to aid in the better understanding of the relationships that exist in the society and business organizations regarding these three elements. Finally, this research is also significant because it will not be limited to any specific firm, market or culture.

1.8 Rationale for Conducting the Research

Research is basically a systematic process of interrogation or a way to solve a curiosity (Goddard and Melville, 2004). This systematic process however, always has a drive or a thrust that the one conducting it feels. Moreover, it is systematic and seeks to expand the boundaries of the knowledge and therefore, for a researcher to have chosen a particular topic there is always a reason or a rationale. For having chosen the focus upon gender, culture and advertisement, the rational was simple but important. Gender has been studied for quite some time in a number of social sciences. The same holds true for culture and also, the same hold true for the study of gender under the light of culture. Through the literature, it has been found that advertisement as a study has found focus of culture, and that of the gendered roles that have been portrayed in it. For conducting this research however, it is considered that it is immensely important to see the first relationship mentioned, that is the one between culture and gender having an impact on the third relationship mentioned, and that is advertisement and gender. The rational for conducting this research is to know first and foremost how various gender roles are portrayed in various advertisements and how those roles have been affected by the how a specific gender exists in a specific culture. For marketers and advertisers, and especially for those advertisements which cast male or female models to somehow portray the message, this research is going to play an immensely important role and aiding them analyze the situation better is basically way this topic was chosen in the first place. This idea and the merging of the two sociological ideas with a management one is the foundation for conducting the research.

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Chapter Two: Literature Review

This section of the research report will be presenting to the reader the secondary data collected for the purpose of this research. It is noted that secondary data is of substantial importance in the arena of conducting the research and as Saunders (2003) points out, this is because of a number of reasons. The first and the foremost reason especially for the students is that literature review is an essential part of the research overall and without which, the research would not be complete. On the other hand, the secondary data allows the researcher to basically build the support system for the analysis and also to gain methodological ideas. For the better understanding of the topic selected for research, the literature review section will be divided into a number of sections.

2.1 Overview of Advertisement as a Business Function

Advertisement is a part of the broader management field, marketing. This has been noted in greater detail and more meaning by Jenkins (2009, p. 23), Marketing is more than just distributing good from the manufacturer to the final customer. It comprises all the stages between the creation of the product and the aftermarket which follows the eventual sale. One of these stages is advertising. The stages are links in a chain, and the chain will break if one of the links is weak. Advertising is therefore as important as every other stage or link and each depends on the other for success. So basically according to the definition and brief explanation of advertising provided by Jenkins (2009) advertising is an internal process for the organization and is basically a way to reach to the end consumers of the organizations products and services. The importance of advertising then can also be determined by the explanation that it is a strong link in the overall marketing strategy of the organization. After the processes of manufacturing, packing and stocking are complete Jenkins (2009) notes that, Without advertising, the products or services cannot flow to the distributors or sellers and on to the consumers or users.

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The first factor that needs to exist is obviously the goods and service that are to be advertised. Sometimes the organizations do advertise aggressively even before the product is launched into the market however, the product is in the phase of manufacturing or has already been manufactured. With just an idea and without the actual product, advertisement cannot exist. The next factor that needs to exist for advertising to exist is the competition between providers of the same kinds of goods and services for which there needs to be a significant potential market. The point is that if there is only one producer for a given commodity in the market, then there will be no point in actually advertising because the consumer will already be focusing on the sole producer that exists in the market. In this case then, advertisement will only be an additional expense for the organization which will not actually receive a lot of profitability in return. So basically, for advertising to have an incentive strong enough for the businesses to actually use it, competition needs to exist. Thirdly, the means of advertising to a large number of people need to be cheap. The point is that if the cost of advertising actually out runs the revenue generated because of it in the shape of attracted customers, then the organization might as well not advertise anything and remain fine with the status quo, that is, no advertising. The fourth and the final factor as noted by Petley (2002) that has to be there for advertising to exist is a population with sufficient education to be able to understand advertising. This is so that the messages can be received and understood by those being targeted. Unless the people of the society are not educated and smart enough to actually understand the message, the message will become useless and thus the advertising will actually be an additional cost for the organization giving very little or no return in the end. In the evolved markets of today then, the importance of the distributors and the retailers, for a number of reasons has gained immense importance. For the manufacturers and producers of goods and services to flourish, they have to realize the blown importance of distributors of today and therefore, make strategies that would actually attract them towards their product or service (Kotler, 2003). Shah (2009) says that advertising plays a very important role in increasing awareness about a product or service in the customers and that awareness then leads to the generation of

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revenue for the organization. The idea is that the customers of the organization are the ones whos interest and attraction (in the form of the purchases) acts as the revenue for the organization. Shah (2009) further develops the idea that dividing the field of marketing into various categories, advertising falls into the section of marketing communication which is actually the promotions part in the overall marketing mix. About marketing communications Shah (2009, p. 9) says that, It involves all activities concerned with effectively communicating product information to selected target audiences. A target audience is the group of consumes to whom marketing communication messages are directed. Muijnck (2009) focuses on the way that advertisement actually works. Muijnck (2009) says that the aim of advertisement is to pick up certain attitudes from the society and then to change them for the benefit of the business if necessary. Attitude then has been described as a social psychology term and has been defined to note the disposition of a person regarding a person, an organization, a product or an idea. Furthermore, it has been noted that the attitude of a person is made up of three elements. The first element is the affective component of the attitude and it is related to the emotional reaction towards object, action or organization. The second component of attitude is the one related to the thoughts and beliefs and basically the thinking process of individuals about an object or an organization. For this part of the attitude, the thoughts and beliefs are made up of the relevant facts (mostly defined by logic) and are not impacted upon by emotions. Finally, the third element is the behavioural component of attitude. This third and final component according to Muijnck (2009); Crites, Fabrigar and Petty (1994) is related to the actions and deeds and the observable behaviour towards the attitude related to the organization, idea and objects. When it is noted that an advertisement relates to the attitudes of an individual, it basically means that the ad will be focusing on one or two of the three components mentioned above. This obviously depends on the purpose of the ad and on its target audience. It has been focused upon that depending on the aim of the aim then, emotions are sometimes depicted to allow the audience of the ad to identify with them and therefore to develop positive feeling (positive reinforcement) or avoid negative feelings

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(negative reinforcement) through the purchase of the good or service represent in the advertisement. To describe the advertisement in a better manner, they are divided by the social psychologists into emotional based advertisements and cognitive based advertisements. Describing again the basics of advertising Petley (2002) notes that, advertising is basically the means to promote goods and services of the organization to the general public! The aim of advertising has been noted by Petley (2002, p. 4) to be, The advertisers goal is to increase sales of these goods or services by drawing peoples attention to them and showing them in a favourable light. Furthermore, Petley (2002) says that for advertising to exist, there have to be a number of factors in place for the organization, the market and the consumers.

2.1.1 Advertising Evolution

It has been studied by Liles (2009); Robinson, Wysocka and Hand (2007) notes that with the increase in the development and incorporation of technology, and especially internet, the overall nature of advertisement has shifted slightly and that after 1994, when the first online advertisement appeared on a webpage, online marketing has actually increased substantially in its incorporation by the businesses. As noted by Liles (2009); Ha (2008), the online advertising revenue in the United States of America alone has risen from 1.8 billion dollars in 1998 to over 20 billion dollars in the year 2007. So basically, given the sharp upward sloping trend of the response rate and the use in of online advertisement, it is imperative for the business organization to focus on, and incorporate online advertising in their business.

2.1.2 Models and Theoretical Frameworks of Advertising

Erickson (2002) studies the dynamic modelling of advertising competitions and notes that there are in fact three types of model frameworks that come in this category. The first model is the Lanchester model which basically captures the dynamics of competition in the state of a duopoly. The structure of the Lanchester model of advertising is actually fairly simple and suffers from a number of drawbacks however it is the only model which has actually received
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considerable attention in the advertising literature which basically focuses upon the modelling of competitive advertising decisions for non durable goods (Wang, 1996). The next classic model for advertising has been studied by Sethi (1975). Sethi (1975) mentions that the Vidale and Wofle advertising model was actually developed as a simple model to study the response of sales to advertising This was done basically through two effects on sales. The first was through the affect that advertising had on the unsold portion of the market and the second was the loss due to forgetting to advertise on that unsold portion. Even through the model created was dynamic in nature the model was actually simple and gathered a lot a lot of criticisms such as the optimal control problem. Even though the Lanchester model of advertising and the Vidale and Wolfe model of advertising are relatively old given the current literature present on advertising, these models still are the classic ones being used and studied in the literature. Another important advertising model, appearing in most of the advertising literature is the hierarchy model studied by Thorson and Duffy (2011). The basic argument of the model, an actually a convincing one is that the attention to a message leads to a desire for the idea or the object which leads to an action to comply with the advertising advocated. Basically, its the hierarchy of steps through which the advertising of a product or idea actually impacts the consumer behaviour. Barker and Angelopulo (2005) focus on some of the newer advertising that is emerging in the theories and in the applications of the advertising literature and note that these models can be separated into two broad classifications. These are the advertising theories of effectiveness or procedure and this category include the Relevance Accessibility Model of advertising effectiveness (RAM) and the Prestons Association Model of advertising communication process. These models basically focus on the procedures and the requirements for the advertising messages to be effective. The second category of advertising models regards those which explain the response prices through which consumers move when they are exposed to advertising. These include the traditional response hierarchy models as already discussed. These then further include the AIDA model: developed to illustrate the phases or stages through which the salesperson takes the consumer when practicing personal selling. The AIDA
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model describes the buyer as passing through attention, interest, desire and action phases (Barker and Angelopulo, 2005). Next, there is the innovation adoption model which represents the stages a consumer passes through in adopting a new product or service. The model argues that after becoming aware of the advertising message, the consumer must be interested in the product. Each of these models holds their special place and look at advertising as an important component of increasing the sales revenue for the organization. Moving from the hierarchy models to the Lanchester and WV models, the literature of the modelling of advertising seems to be progressing actually fast and the marketers are basically found focusing on the consumers more and more.

2.2 The Element of Gender in the Advertising

From here onwards, the review of literature will be focusing upon the element of gender in the overall function of advertising. It has been noted in the section above that advertising can actually impact people emotionally, cognitively or behaviourally. Gender then is also actually something that affects a person in these three manners. Also, in the social context, gender and the knowledge of gender has a very strong role to play. Now if advertising is actually the focus on the society to achieve some results, gender is something that needs to be considered. Wood (2010) says that gendered advertising is actually one of the strongest media for the portrayal of stereotypical roles for men and women that might appear in the society otherwise as well. This form of portrayal, as Wood (2010) points out then can actually have a very strong influence on the attitudes and view of men and women in the society. There are a number of reasons why gendered advertisements can have a strong impact on the society and the reinforcement or fading effect of gender idea in the society. The first reason that has been provided by Woods (2010) for this media to have a very strong impact is the rate of repetition of it. It has been noted in social psychology that a message that is constantly repeated to the audience does finally sit in, in the memory of the audience and can have a long lasting or at least a changing impact on the person. Advertisements such has those on TV, magazines, and billboards are repeated to the senses of the person a number of
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times and therefore they sink in pretty well. Next on, the majority of the ads emphasize on the visual images which are actually less subject to the conscious analysis by an individual than the verbal claims. Whereas the visual image may appeal more to the emotional aspect or the behavioural aspect of the person, the verbal images attract more the cognitive aspect of the individual. In this then, the overall idea and the impact expected of the ad might be lost which is actually not because of the aid of visualization that is taken. Thirdly, advertising can have a significant impact on the learning and the attitudes of the people because people think that they are immune to it and therefore will not be affected by it. People lower their guards to the advertisement and therefore they end up being more affected by it than they would have been had they been watching the ad more consciously and looking at each and every aspect of it. Woods (2010, p. 269) says that, Although many people think they dont buy a particular brand of jeans or beer because of ads, research suggests differently-ads do affect what people purchase and what they consider attractive, feminine, masculine, etc. So basically, what Wood (2010) is trying to say is that even though advertisements pick things from within the organization, they sometimes are also actually the ones affecting the societys view about certain things in the first place! For example, the idea of masculinity is now actually being used by a number of brands for the purpose of advertisement. Being existent actually in the society or not, after the constant portrayal in the ads, the idea will finally end up catching fire.

2.2.1 The Gendered Strategy

Hill and Helmers (2004) say that gendered advertisements or those focusing on the gendered environment are in fact one of the strategies used in the advertisings visual rhetoric. Hill and Helmers (2004, p. 156) say that, Advertisements that combine images of nature with narratives of gender offer consumers visualizations that cloak the nature of consumption on the environment with essentialist fantasies of masculinity or femininity.

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From an aspect of sociology, the authors further emphasize upon the fact that the rhetoric of gendered environments which are being exploited by the organization usually found to be more compelling in the environments where gender is problematic and when the natural environments are found to be under threat. Through the advertisement then, the organization is actually promoting to solve the perceived problem in the environment and helps the consumers in expectedly solving the gender related tensions. The advertisements based on gender related issues basically affirm two traditional ideologies (Hill and Helmers, 2004). The first is the belief in the distinct gender attributes as essential to sexual identity in which people of a society may believe that some activities may be tabooed for a man or a woman because it questions the sexual identity of that individual. The second belief is in an infinite, unchanging and natural world in which the females are supposed to possess passivity and the males of the society are supposed to conquest. Ettore and Riska (1994) say that there is no doubt about the fact that advertising is an essential marketing component and is necessary for the purpose of promoting goods and services in the market based commodities. However, the way that the goods and services are promoted sometimes, by the way of more than just strictly giving the consumers the information of the product is an important consideration for the society as a whole. Ettorre and Riska (1994) then identity that advertising is usually done through two ways: The first way is the way as identified is the gender typing of commodities. For example, automobiles or alcoholic beverages are sold as a sign of masculinity, and detergents and household items as a sign of housewifery. This basically creates gendered marketing for the goods and services. It has also been pointed out by the authors that the current change in the gendered environments and the perceived roles of men and women has actually caused a challenged for the advertisers who were at first good at identifying the gender related requirement of advertisement of a given product or service. The second way is that of gender metaphors. These are implying pictures without portrayal of humans and it constitutes an important device in rug advertising. These usually appear in drug advertisements and are generally analyzed by means of semiological approach to decode the symbols and tacit messages (Hills and Helmers, 1994). In this context of changing gender roles in the society, Chauduri (2001) focuses mostly on the market of India. The author focuses on
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the point that images of women India are usually portrayed and accepted in the traditional home maker or mother context. However, it has been studied with regards to the male models in adverts today that the role of man and the notion of power and success, initially un deniable and un compromised in India are changing to argue more for liberalization. Fitzgerald and Arnott (2000) note that the research and application gone into the combination of advertising and gender is much more massive than the research gone into the field of any other variable related to marketing communications. A different aspect of gendered advertisement has been noted by Fitzgerald and Arnott (2000; Darley and Smith (1995) who say that the advertising messages about a given product are actually differently interpreted and processed by the females and males in the society. Similarly Fitzgerald and Arnott (2000); Leigh et al (1987) note that after the different interpretations and the processing of information by the females and males, there has also actually found to be difference in response and behaviours existing after the advertisements. Fitzgerald and Arnott (2000); Jaffe and Berger (1994) further note an interesting phenomenon for advertising. It has been noted that the most effective portrayal of gender roles in advertising for household goods aimed at the female purchaser were those using an egalitarian image depicting a husband and wife sharing household chores, concluding that firms will be rewarded for the astuteness to womens changing needs. Finally Thompson (2004) note that there is a clear difference or bias found in the drug advertisements. The study shows that sexual distribution is found to exist in the medications for various problems. The results have depicted that the advertisements were focused more on the males of the society for these ads than the women. However for diseases such as arthritis and pain, the bias found was almost negligible in the advertisements.

2.3 Overview of the notion of culture with respect to researches, society and economic decision making
Jenks (2005) questions the idea of culture and starts with questioning the power that this idea has that it actually makes man forget his original nature and locate his actions and practices within an endowment of socially produced symbolic forms.
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Jenks (2005) then notes that the emergence of the idea of culture actually came into being in the eighteenth century when people were actually moving away from the mass culture. It has been noted that these moves towards modernity was something that actually led the people to question what some people are believing in and behaving upon and what was originally believed and socially accepted. Jenks (2005) says that the changes that occurred in the society were controversial at an all social, political and personal level and led to confusion. This then, through evolution led to the overall growth in the divisibility of people in the society. In this regards, the idea of culture can be said to be originating metaphorically and derivatively and not descriptively from the processes of agriculture or horticulture and cultivation. Jenks (2005, p. 8) says that, Whereas the former concept of civilization is descriptive of a kind of stasis, a membership a belonging, indeed a status once achieved not to be relinquished; the latter, culture is a resonant with other ideas of emergence and change, perhaps even transformation. Simply, it can be implied from the explanation above that culture results from the division of people into various sects because of the differences in opportunities that they find to exist in the various methods of production and methods of the sustenance of life. Eagleton (2004) focusing upon the complexity that the idea of culture represents, says that culture is actually considered to be one of the three most complicated words in the English language and a term for which the opposite, nature is commonly awarded the accolade of being the most complex of all. The author however further notes that today it is considered a fashion by various branches to see nature as a derivative of culture whereas, culture is a concept that is derived from the idea of nature. Throughout the history, the idea of culture has had a number of meanings. Eagleton (2004) notes the first to be husbandry meaning that culture is basically the tending of the natural true and this then holds similar to the words of law and justice, sterling and capital. So through this, one can derive from this that, culture is in fact a way of living and, a law for the natural growth
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of people. The author also notes the various roots that culture has and says that in Latin, the word culture means anything from cultivating and inhabiting to worshipping and protecting. Its meaning as inhabit have evolved from the Latin colonus to the contemporary colonialism so that the titles like culture and colonialism are once again mildly tautological. Giles and Middleton (2003) study culture and say that it is one of the central concepts in the understanding of how modern societies work and that for this reason it is worth spending time considering the different ways in which the term culture has been and is used. Giles and Middleton (2003); William (1976) identifies that there are three broad categories of general usage of culture. The first one notes that culture is a general process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development. The second idea is that culture is basically a particular way of life for all people, time, group or humanity as a while. Finally, culture is noted to be the works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activities that are happening around the society in a given time. Casson (2006) then notes the culture of a society to have a substantial impact on its economic performance. The authors study that culture is defined as a sharing of values and beliefs and that this idea can actually impact the performance of a society economically in a number of ways and that, culture for a group or a nation can be regarded as a particular kind of intangible public good that needs to be administered, properly led and worked upon accordingly. Streeten (2006) also focus upon the fact that economic development, apart from just a static economic performance is also impacted by the culture of a society and that the culture can actually hinder or help the overall economic development that a society is making. Streeten (2006) studies the literature and says that culture through previous researches was being seen to be one of the major obstacles in the development process of the economic development. However, in the more recent studies, culture is regarded as an opportunity through which the development of a human centered society can be made rather than the development of a goods centered economy. The author notes that the difference between the two is that initially the societies and the economies were considered to be only about the goods and services that

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were being produced. However as of today, the ideas have shifted and the focus is now on the development of goods and services because of the actual development of the humans. Finally, Chebat, Kerzazi and Zourrig (2010) say that culture is an important element which can help the people in understanding the dissatisfaction of the customers and how they express their ideas of dissatisfaction about products or services.

2.3.1 Culture and Gender

This final section of the literature review will be focusing on the impact that culture will have on gender issues in the organization. Deutsche (1997, p. 27) interestingly questions the entire concept of gender. It has been said that, The sex or gender debate belongs to the period in feminist theory when gender behaviour was understood as culturally constructed. Gender was distinguished from sex understood as the biological fact of being man or woman. Emphasizing the culture constructions of gender was an important move in feminism because it denaturalized stereotypes of masculine and feminine behaviour. It basically means that gender as a phenomenon is actually not naturally occurring and it is actually a culturally constructed idea. This implies that with the variation in culture, the perception of gender in the society and the responses to the gender related issues will change. If this feminist theory is considered to be true, focusing on the culture related gender issues can help define the marketing or the advertising strategies of the organization. Assuming that the advertisers already know this fact, the advertisers already account for the cultural impact of the ads that they produce. Philips (2010) also considers the relationship between gender and culture and says questions as to whether gender can be studied and theorized in isolation from the cultural aspect. The author says that there are a number of issues when one considers looking at gender free from culture. The fist problem is the expanse of feminist literature and that women in minority cultures may be rendered invisible by their cultural traditions. The cultures are then presented as more unified and uncontested. The second problem in doing so regards the gender equality
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has actually become attached to the nations which do not have any specific cultures, or any specific dominant culture. Promoting then, the relationship between culture and gender Philips (2010) argues that without a dominant culture, the relationship between the two sexes is considered to be more emancipated and less patriarchal than is the case within minority cultural groups. The final problem in seeing the two elements of culture and gender as separate entities is that gender inequities that arise out of cases invoking cultural considerations will actually be misread as the effects of cultural defence. This in turn will lead to the view that there has been too much accommodation of minority cultures, and that this is why women as a separate gender will be disadvantaged thus provoking the criticism of the feminist groups for the theories looking at culture and gender distinctly. About the sociological relationship between culture and gender, Milestone and Meyer (2012) argue that in the United States of America in 1970s, culture amongst other goods and services was actually being mass produced through the work of the media. Assuming then that the relationship between culture and gender hold, this actually further destroys the ground for the concept of naturally occurring gender issues. The argument is that if the culture is artificially produced in some parts of the world, then the ideas of gender in it will also be artificial nature. Finally Ember and Ember (2003) extensively analyze the effect that cultural underpinnings have on the gender roles in the society. The authors (2003, p. xi) note that, Cultural expectations have profound effects on how males and females grow up in a society, so much so that many researchers prefer to use the terms gender differences or gender roles to reflect the large impact of culture on differences between the sexes. The terms sex differences and sex roles now usually refer to differences that are thought to derive primarily from biological differences. The advantage of the term gender is that it also allows us to deal with situations where societies conceptualize more than two genders or who have individual who change gender role in the course of their lifetimes. The problem for social science is that we often do not know whether a particular difference is due to culture or biology or both.
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Chapter Three: Research Methodology

Before starting off with the presentation of the actual research methodology for this dissertation, it is important to note what research actually is. This is important so that the researcher, using the basics can prove that the methodology is basically the core reason why the results came out to be the ones that they did. It has been noted in the introduction section of the research report as well that research is a systematic enquiry into a subject matter which is basically seeking to answer some unasked questions, ask the questions that have not been considered at first and expanding the overall boundaries of knowledge and policy frameworks regarding an issue. In alignment with the aims and objectives of the research, the paper followed a methodology for the conduction of the research that was considered fit. The research methodology is basically the systematic way through which an element of curiosity or a phenomenon of the world is solved. Having taken that into account, it is actually immensely important to design it is such a way so that the quality of the research, the aims and objectives and the ethical issues. The following methodology then was used for the dissertation.

3.1 Research Approach

In having to choose between the two research philosophies, positivism and interpretivism, the chosen research philosophy was interpretivism. The idea behind it was that a sociologically inclined business related research will better be explained subjectively and theoretically. The reason being, that such a research cannot be provided a quality explanation through trying to find its law like generalizations (Saunders, 2003). The reason is that for every culture and for everybody in the culture, the advertisement might hold different things. That is, in regards to the items portrayed for purchase or in regards to the way through which the items are portrayed. Like the research methodology has an important impact on the overall quality of the research and has a power to influence the overall findings and the resulting conclusion of the dissertation, similarly, the method through which an advertisement is shown to the public has a massive influence on how the masses will react. It is important to create a methodology for advertisements in alignment to the aims and objectives and because the aim is to influence the
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people and because the notion of gender for the people is immensely important and effective, the right methodology for the advertisement needs to be chosen in the light of the gender roles in the society. However, the research has too many sociological underpinnings to actually try to generalize and model it for one culture or the entire population of the world. As mentioned, positivism will not be able to effectively study the issue mostly because converting culture, gender and advertisement into numerical indexes will actually be impossible. Interpretivism however, that is the subjective explanation of each element will be better able to study the phenomenon and guide the researcher towards the right conclusion and the right set of recommendations. So, in short, the approach adopted for this research is interpretivism. Following this philosophy, the research approach adopted will be inductive. The data analysis will seek to develop a theoretical reasoning background with it findings and understand whether culture actually plays a role in how genders are depicted in advertisements across the world.

3.2 Research Design

The design or the strategy to answer the research questions is that five different gendered advertisements, for five different cultures have been analyzed. The product chosen for the research will be kept the same and this will be acting as the control in the research. The analysis that has been provided in chapter four of the research has looked into the depicted gender roles in the advertisements separately and then will be comparing one with each other to reach to a conclusion. Before the actual analyses however, the data analysis portion has looked into the gender roles in those cultures so that a ground is set for gendered and cultured analyses. As obvious then, the research is looking at the problem through qualitative perspective and the analyses has also been looked into through the qualitative perspective.

3.3 Primary data Collection

As has been mentioned already, primary data for the research aims and objectives and to answer the research questions precisely was not possible. For this dissertation, the already existing advertisements had to be made use of and the variation of representation of gender in

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different cultures had to be analyzed. In this regards, secondary data as explained below seemed to be the most efficient strategy in doing so.

3.4 Secondary Data Collection

3.4.1 Stage One

The first stage of the secondary data collection, present in the form of an in depth literature review in the second chapter of the report and will later be presented as a study of cultures of the countries chosen for the gender roles, actually forms an important part of this report and one of the most important reasons is that the knowledge gained from the literature review is actually applied to the findings and the analysis of the advertisements. The resources for the secondary data collection will be the research journals available online and the books on the topic of all culture, gender and advertisement. Internet is being used as the medium of getting to the sources mostly because it allows the user a great deal of efficiency for research which is actually an extremely important thing given the short deadline for the research. Also, internet allows the researcher to look into several things at one time therefore allowing him or her to achieve greater information in the same time.
3.4.2 Stage Two

For the second stage of the secondary data collection procedure, five different advertisements, for four different products was seen and then analyzed. For each country, multinationals usually use different advertisements, incorporating the effect of differences in the culture, the preferences and the elements of perception of people. Mikhailitchenko et al (2008) note that the image related advertising are significantly dependent on the brand familiarity and the culture media and therefore, the secondary elements that the culture affects become automatically important for the advertiser. Similarly, Samie (2003) finds out through the research that the standardization of advertising programs of the multinational varies greatly across nations. Basically meaning that it is not at all necessary for the multinational corporations develop just one advertisement and then broadcast it in all the countries and cultures in which it is operating. This is primarily because they understand that unless the

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people can relate to the advertisement, they will not be convinced enough to be attracted towards the product that the organization is offering. So basically, research also indicates that cultural factors do impact advertisements. As is evident, the focus is mostly on the behaviours of the multinational corporations because they are dealing with more than one culture at the same time and because these are the ones which have the strongest reason to actually study and act according to the gender roles in a specific culture. Now the research wants to find out how culture effects the gendered advertisements. For this neutral goods had been chosen that is, some like a shaving gel (which is specific to the use of the male population usually) or sanitary pads (which is specific to the use of the female population) or something that is used by the transgender population has not be chosen to study upon. However, goods such as shampoos and deodorants which have different branches for males and females have been chosen. The basic idea for choosing neutral products is to make sure that the product related gender effect is wiped out from the product and only the culture related gender effect is brought into the research for analysis. For this, the following five products have been chosen. All these products, as organizations are operating in more than more countries in the world and therefore are dealing with more than one culture. It is to be noted that the goods the fast moving consumer items so that the direct impact of the consumer psyche can be understood through it. i) ii) iii) iv) Coca Cola Cadburys Chocolates Clear Shampoo Kelloggs Cornflakes

The medium chosen for looking at the advertisement is television and the advertisements will be seen on a video hosting website. These products have been chosen because they are present in more than one country and therefore in more than one culture.

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As stated, the basic reason for choosing these four products is that they operate in more than one country and are therefore subject to more than one culture. Each product as analyzed for different country and thus a different culture for the gender roles that are portrayed in the advertisements will help in coming to a conclusion about the effects that presence of certain culture has on the type of gender roles portrayed in each country. Another reason for choosing a multinational organization and thus a multinational product instead of a local one was to account for the differences in vision, mission and core strategy of the organization. Any biases or differences that could have risen because of these variations were kept constant and therefore multinational products, and their respective advertisements in each country. Finally, multinational products were taken into account because these organizations took into account the cultures of different countries as external elements. Only United States of America, chosen as a country for analysis for the reasons that will be mentioned in the next section headquarters three of these products. All the products are external investments in the remaining three countries. The basic point of this is that is that the organizations have to seriously consider the element of gender. For example, a local producer from Saudi Arabia may just naturally come up with an advertisement that is culturally fit and influential for that countrys people. For an external country however, this might not be true. What was required for the purpose of this dissertation was that the management of the organizations to consciously consider and manage culture and gender factors to strategically align their advertisement to yield the best results. The countries chosen for the analysis are as follows: i) ii) iii) iv) United States of America Pakistan India Saudi Arabia

The advertisements will each be seen three times and the role of the gender as visible in the advertisement will be stated. The reason for choosing these four countries is because culturally speaking these four countries is very different from each other. This has been discussed in further detail in chapter four of this report. These four countries nonetheless acted as four

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individual data sets across which the variation in the gender portrayal in the advertisements was seen. The basic framework can be explained better by the following diagram.

Four Countries, basically representing four different cultures

Variation in gender role because of culture in multinational products

Four multinational products keeping constant the effect of inherent culture

Culture affected gender

Portrayal of Gender in advertisement

Fig 1: Theoretical Framework By looking at the framework, it can be seen clearly that through the countries, the differences in the gender variation is being analyzed and through the products, the gender part of the thesis statement is being focused upon. Together these two variables have allowed the researcher to study the impact that culture has on the way gender roles are portrayed in the marketing of the products that are consciously designed to fit different cultures. The differences in the cultures of the four countries (especially in regards to the gender ideas) have been analyzed in the fourth chapter however to mention the variations briefly, it is considered important to note that in Saudi Arabia, women are almost given negligible freedom. They are not the people who can be employed and by law, women are prohibited to drive and also, they cannot vote or study even after high school. On the contrary, the culture for women in America is completely different. There is almost perfect equality between the genders and the two genders are mostly noted to be perfectly comfortable with each others presence. This is a notion which is growing very strongly in India as well. As their education and media is progressing, the gender equality and the acceptance of the two genders to coexist are facing a positive slope. The same could be said for Pakistan too but only for its urban centres (which make up only 30 percent of the population in the country) and even there too in a limited manner. The cultural and religious boundaries are wider and stronger in Pakistan however,
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much less than those in Saudi Arabia. Together then, these four countries present four different cultures and therefore four different expected gender roles. On the next step, the information regarding the cultures of the countries, and the gender roles will be analyzed and will be noted down. This will be done through secondary study and therefore will be noted in the secondary data collection section. In the data analysis section the two are to be compared and contrasted together and the overall impact of culture on the advertisement in the five countries have been seen. For each of the advertisements, the time period chosen have been the same that is; all the advertisements broadcasted from the year 2008 to 2010 have been included in the analysis. This has been done to hold the variable of time constant and to make sure that any time changes have not resulted in a change in the gender roles as depicted by the advertisement. This notion has also been analyzed in the literature review that is, over time, culture tends to change and so do the roles and behaviours of people adhering to it.

3.5 Ethical Issues under Consideration

Even though this was a sociologically inclined research, there were not many ethical considerations that had to be catered to fortunately. Because the primary data collection did not involve any specific person to be a participant of the research, the research did not have to cater to the ethical issues such as anonymity and confidentiality, debriefing, deception and any other social, personal or sociological harm to any people involved. However, in regards to respectfully dealing with each culture, care was taken that the culture be described in the most objective manner possible and any biases and any offensive material about a culture may not be included as a part of the report. This was done to make sure that any culture, through the report is not disrespected or harmed in any manner. It was taken as a duty to respectfully and ethically describe all the cultures. The real problem however that, the ethical considerations of the report catered to, is that of plagiarism. In order to avoid that and to give due credit to the researchers, of their efforts put into the research, a proper system of referencing was followed. Throughout the report and in

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the bibliography, the Harvard system of referencing was followed and thus the ethical issue of plagiarism and the stealth of anybody elses work were avoided.

3.6 Limitations of the Research

The biggest and the most important limitation of this research is considered to be the fact that it is not able to mathematically draw out analysis and conclusion about the role of culture in gendered advertisement. If the analysis of this could have been achieved through the positivist perspective, this could have seriously benefitted the marketing and business world and the overall significance of the research would have been massive. However, cultures are almost impossible to be studied through mathematical and law like ways mostly because one standard culture is not available to the world and also because it will be offensive to state one culture as default and general and any other cultures as deviations. Moreover, the research is limited because there was only limited time to research given the due date upon which the research had to be submitted. This actually hampered the ability of the researcher to look into the issue of cultural impact on the gendered advertisements. It would have been possible to look into more advertisements related to cultures with respect to different gender roles had there been more time available however, given the time awarded, the research is considered to be effectively studying the topic.

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Chapter Four: Data Analysis

As mentioned, for the data analysis, television commercials for four products were seen for four countries. These countries were Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, United States of America and India. It is to be noted that for each of the country, the culture varies greatly and therefore, the variations in the advertisements, keeping all other things constant such as the effect of population, the level and response sensitivity of consumer demand and finally the efficiency of management of the branch of the multinational out of other factors will be assumed to be constant. This then implies that the focus of the research while seeing the advertisements was just on the depiction of gender in the advertisement. This then will be related to the findings of the culture about each country. The data analysis section will be broken down into three parts. The first part will be describing the advertisements and will be looking at how gender in each has been portrayed. The second part will be focusing upon the explanation of culture of each country. In this part, special focus will be placed upon the gender roles in the culture. And finally the third part of this section will analyze the two together coming to a comparative analysis between the gendered advertisements as being affected by the specific culture.

4.1 Gender Roles in the Culture

This section will look into the gender roles that each culture that is the ones for the countries discussed have been in the last section.

Saudi Arabia
According to Human Rights Watch (2008), the gender roles in Saudi Arabia are actually one of the strictest ever. Saudi Arabia is one of the fundamentalist believer of Islamic laws and has continued to be a conservative nation overall. This obviously is one of the reasons of why the social growth in Saudi Arabia is less. In the country, there are no special roles to be defined for the men, however, because of the roles that have been strictly defined for the female social counterparts the male domination in the country comes into significance. The Human Right Watch (2008) notes in a report that in
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the country, women are not being given the basic right to education as they have to be withdrawn from education after secondary schooling. One of the reasons for this is that they consider that it is the men who have to earn and provide for the households so the resources might as well be used up where the country will actually gain something. The women then are also not allowed by the law to have an employment. Women are not allowed to work at all in the country as their true role is considered to be managing the households and the children (Long, 2005). Also, the women do not have the right to refuse to sexual intimacy that a husband desires at any time of the day however on the other hand, a husband by law is not obligated to give the women sexual pleasure as long as he is providing for the family. Next, the women in Saudi Arabia are not allowed to drive and according to BBC (2011), a woman was sentenced for 10 lashes for not listening to the state and defying the ban on driving. Finally, as far as a political say is concerned, the women in the country still do not have a right to vote and also, they are not given the right to stand up for the official positions. According to BBC (2011) however, this law is to be amended in 2015 where women will be allowed to vote for the government and will also be allowed stand up for government position. This position of gender in the culture of the country can also be seen though the following illustrations:

Fig 2: Advertisement for a Concert in Jeddah

Fig 3: Cellular Network Advertisement

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Fig 4: Billboard for Welcoming People into the City

The analysis of these available figures yields the fact that females are significantly missing from public display in the country. This is in alignment with the culture of the country where the authority and most of the freedom lies with the men of the country. An interesting advertisement found regarding the Arabic women during the phase of cultural research for this dissertation.

Fig 5: Advertisement in Saudi Arabia for a Pure Female Product Fig 5 shows the advertisement for a product for which a male model would not have made sense and probably the advertising agency wanted to portray the message through a human

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model. It is to be noted however that the model for this advertisement is barely visible and looking at the figure immediately brings into mind the Arabic women. So in short, in the world of advertisement and culture in Saudi Arabia, the role of women is limited and prohibited by law and serious implications are there for women who disregard the law (Long, 2005).

India
Bradely (2010) notes from a visit to India to study the gender inequality in the country that there is no doubt about the fact that gender inequality and oppression for women in the culture of India exists however it was noted that there is a certain and very large actually degree of respect that the society overall holds for the female counterparts. Furthermore the author notes that the respect for women is increasing at a fast rate (Kalman, 2010). Next however the author also notes that the conservatives and the orthodox people that are present in the country are actually one of those who still leave the baby girls (if born to them) at other peoples doorsteps and also the Indian culture is known for the killing of the girls if born. Moreover, it was noted by Bradley (2010) that women who gave birth to female babies were also the ones suffering the wrath of their husbands and their parents in laws and that sometimes, the women were actually killed for giving birth to female children. However, the Indian culture as of today is an extremely dynamic one and female counterparts in the society especially the ones in the urban areas are facing equality with man and they are reaching and working in all the spheres of the society (Kalman, 2010). The freedom of dressing publicly that the women are given in India then are also depicted from the dressing that their movie stars and models do. One of the strongest political names in India, Sonia Gandhi is a female and the similarly, by law, women are allowed equal rights as men. For the better description of the culture of Indian advertisement, the following illustrations are considered helpful.

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Fig 6: Advertisement in India for a Movie

Fig 7: Indian Clothing Brand Advertisement

Quite the contrary of pictorial analysis for the media and cultural findings of Saudi Arabia, the Indian cultural portrays an ease of the participation of women and the comfortable socialization of the men and women in the society. Both the advertisements show a comfort in the styles and the portrayal of the genders in the country. The point to be noted here is that if these were not accepted by the public then a bold publicity campaign like the one shown in fig 6 would not have been possible. In short then, this means that the two genders are more comfortably displayed in India than they were found to be displayed in Saudi Arabia.

Pakistan
The status of women in Pakistan is greatly variable across castes, regions and classes. The culture of Pakistan then and the gender roles that are there are very strongly similar to the ones in India. There are parts of the country which do not allow women any right at all. In some parts of the country then, the only purpose of a female body is to cook, provide sexual pleasure to the man and produce babies (Black, 2003). In these parts then, girls are not allowed to have education, even primary and are sometimes also considered to be a threat to the honour of the family. Honour killing in the country is also one of the major problems because of the females. However, in other parts of the country, women are found to be highly educated and working. One of the most significant and rich political leader of Pakistan, and twice the prime minister was a woman. So basically, the roles of women in the country are changing substantially (Qadeer, 2006). Women are being given more and more rights and are being allowed freedom of education and work (which actually they are assured by the law however the regional law is stronger when it comes to situations like these and there is no significant forum to take the
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matters up with the actual courts of the country). These findings are also better understood by the following illustrations:

Fig 8: Advertisement for Pakistani Movie

Fig 9: Advertisement for Stoneage Jeans

United States of America

Fig 10: Advertisement for a Weekly Soap (USA) Fig 11: Advertisement for a Weekly Soap (USA)

As depicted by the figures above, in this country then, there are basically no special gender roles to be discussed. Women and men are treated as equal in all aspects. The government and also the culture allow no discrimination on the basis of gender (Bigsby, 2006). In fact, there is a monitoring department in the country which makes sure that there is no breach of equality in the United States of America on any grounds. Women then, have the right to education as
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much as they want to have it. They have no restriction to take care of the house and can choose their career over their personal life if they see it to be fit for them. And finally, the women have the right to stand up in the general elections and lead the masses if they consider (and if the public considers) it to be viable.

4.2 Gender Roles in Advertisements

Coca Cola
The first advertisement viewed was for the multinational beverage organization coca cola. It is to be noted that coca cola operates in a number of countries however, more importantly it operates in the four countries selected. Furthermore, the advertisements viewed all fall into the period of being broadcasted in 2011, that is, that are all a year old with plus minus 3 months standard deviation. The first coca cola ad viewed was for Saudi Arabia and was one of the brrrr campaigns for the company. In this, the scene of a black market for the country is being depicted. In the main role is a famous personality (male) dressed up in a casual coat and pant with a red scarf and desert hat. The person is walked with on the two sides with two girls, one of which is holding an umbrella for the famous male and the other one is just walking along showing the expression of feeling immensely hot. Both the girls are dressed up in western clothes. Behind these three, is a group of men. The scene depicts that it is very hot and the famous personality needs to drink something when he enters this shop where the shopkeeper (male) gives him coca cola and makes the personality after drinking coca cola go brrrr. Next, the shopkeeper in traditional attire goes brrrr too. The scene changes to that of a highway where two cars stop simultaneously on a signal (driven by men) drink coca cola and go brrrr. The scene changes again to show a football scene and then a concert scene. In both, no girls are visible. Next, in a college scene, a group of boys drinking coca cola g brrr after eyeing a group of passing girls and finally, a beach scene where a group of three girls buy coca cola from a caf and go brrr... Here the advertisement ends (YouTube, 2011). Looking at the advertisement closely then, it can be seen that the role for women is minimal. This finding is in alignment with the cultural

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findings about the gender roles. The lead roles are taken by the men in the country. It is to be focused upon here that there are no women to be seen on the road while the highway seen is being conducted. This again is a culturally and strategically correct move by coca cola because if women were shown to be driving and socializing on the roads of Saudi Arabia, no real women would have been able to relate to that and then the notion of coca cola as a foreign drink would have been significant. Even though the gender roles are not found to be extremely equal in Pakistan, the advertisement for the country is actually quite liberal and promotes socialization. The advertisement analyzed, which was expected to be the closed in gender role portrayal was for Pakistan. The Pakistani advertisement for coca cola is a scene from a restaurant, where the focus is on a group of friends (male), who are sitting on a table and their food is being served by the waiters. As the food and the drinks (coca cola) is being served, the guys go hyper and coca cola makes them dance and go crazy. They are apparently unconcerned about how the rest of the people in the restaurant (boys and girls, mostly in western attire) are looking at them and laughing. After a while the boys realize and calm down, embarrassed and begin to sit on their chairs telling each other to behave. Before they can sit however, everybody around them in the restaurant including the girls and boys (basically everybody in the restaurant) starts to dance. The idea that coca cola gives through this advertisement is to eat and live and drink coca cola (YouTube, 2011). It can be seen through this then that coca cola here is mostly targeting the urban societies of Pakistan and is therefore aligning the advertisement to cater to that society in the country. Next, the advertisement in India for coca cola was seen. The Indian advertisement for coca cola starts with a scene of a classroom where the teacher is turned towards the board, writing something and a girl (dressed in western attire, sitting next to the window) is conscious about her boyfriend who is right outside the window and is holding a bottle of coca cola and a red rose. The boyfriend tries to hand the bottle of coke over to the girl and in fact, the teacher grabs it and drinks it immediately. Unexpectedly, the teacher goes brrr and everybody starts laughing and the boyfriend is shocked. The scene changes to show a girl with open hair in the middle of the street with a lot of pigeons flying around her, holding a bottle of coca cola and going brrr. Next scene shows people (both boys and girls, individually and together) going
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brrr on having drunk coca cola (YouTube, 2011). In comparison to the above two, the case for India and coca cola seems to be most liberal till now. There is no hint of any special gender roles and both the genders are depicted to be free willed, independent and socially accepted in all roles. Finally, the commercial for the United States of America by coca cola shows the hard times on the people caused by the financial crises of 2008 and 2009. The advertisement however, came in late 2010. In this, the Simpson cartoons character Mr. Burns has faced a business decline majorly and has gone bankrupt such that all of his assets are being taken away from him. There is a yard sale of his things in which women are shown to be getting things from there, loading them into their cars and leaving the sad Mr. Burns behind. He loses everything and is left along in the world. Walking he, reaches a park where people, unconcerned are having fun with their families, lying down in the sun. A happy police has captured a happy criminal and both have bottle of coca cola in their hands. Then a person taking lots of coca cola bottles (from his Indian family that can be seen in the background) sees sad Mr. Burns and gets an idea. He offers him a bottle of Coca Cola and after one sip somebody through soccer ball in Mr. Burns hands. Before he realizes then, people are carrying him in their hands and making him feel better. Then a bottle of coca cola in the air shows with the message, open happiness (YouTube, 2011). Once again, there is no hint of any inclination towards gender discrimination. Everybody is independent in their decisions and suffers the results of their decisions accordingly.

Cadburys Chocolates
Again, Cadbury is probably one of the names for chocolate itself. It is a far moving consumer item and is actually adored by a number of people around the globe. Even if it is not directly present in the country in the form of business, it is imported and sold at high volumes. Unfortunately for the research, Cadburys was not found to have any advertisement specifically directed for Saudi Arabia. The closet thing that could have been used was the official international Cadbury advertisement however, this was not broadcasted in Pakistan and therefore, since standardization there is not achieved, to assume that it might be broadcasted in Saudi Arabia and to base the analysis on it is not considered to be a good idea.

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Moving on to the next country, the Pakistani advertisement for Cadbury dairy milk chocolate shows a scene of a house in which a to be soon bride is surrounded by family. The entire house is decorated, everybody is dressed up. Sitting together are three old female relatives of the girl lecturing the girl as to how to behave properly in her new house and how to deal with mother in law and then how to set her ground in the kitchen. The brother sitting a little away from the group but a part of the conversation actually tells the elder relatives that she will not be able to do it and that she doesnt do anything or has ever entered the kitchen. This happens three times on all the three things that the elder female relatives tell the girl to do. Finally, the elder women leave but the girl is angry at her brother and tells her to stop because shes getting married tomorrow. The brother takes two big bar of Cadbury out of a hidden place and tells her with a smile that they might not be able to fight after today so they might as well fight as much as they can. The girl has tears in her eyes and the scene shifts to her wedding day where she is being sent off to the new home by the family. Sitting in the car with her husband she sees a Cadbury bar on the seat and looks for her brother in the crowd. Seeing him she smiles and then Cadbury shows with the message of kuch meetha ho jae meaning, have something sweet to eat on an occasion like this. A family culture prevailing in the households has been shown (YouTube, 2011). Through the dialogue that is taking place, the roles of a woman in the family are explained. According to the advertisement then, the main roles of a woman are to look after the house and the family and obey the elders. For the brother shown on the other hand, a sense of authority and a need to prove him is depicted. Through the country wise cultural findings of Pakistan, again, this is found to be in alignment. The intensity of this advertisement however in depicting the scenes is milder and targeting a larger population. In the literature review, Wood (2010) has been found to say that one of the strongest factors in the creation of stereotypical roles is media. With this portrayal, the stereotypical role of a good woman in the society is reinforced. Not in relation to these roles are the ones depicted in the Indian ad for the same campaign of the chocolate. The Indian commercial for Cadbury was also a part of the kuch meetha ho jae, lets have something sweet to eat on a sweet occasion theme. This commercial shows the scene of a bus stop throughout which shows that a girl in western attire, around 15 to 20 years of age is waiting on
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the bus stop for the bus. The girl is eating Cadbury and is pretty unconcerned with the rest of the world. This boy (around 15 to 20 years of age and holding what looks like a college bag) watching her walks up to her and says if he could have a bite of the chocolate. The girl questions whether she knows him and he says no and on this the girl turns her face away in attitude showing manner. The boy tells her that his mother says that people should always eat something sweet before doing something special. The girl just gives up and breaks a small piece off from the chocolate and gives to the guy. After the guy has eaten the piece, the girl asks as to what special thing has he to do anyway. On this the guy says that he was thinking is he could drop her home (basically asking her out). The girl smiles and looks away. The sign of Cadbury shows with a shubh aharambh (YouTube, 2011). Something good for a good occasion! Finally, the least gender discrimination found to be in accordance with the cultural finding was in the ad for the United States of America. The Cadbury TV commercial for the United States of America practically stars nobody but the genders are implied through the clothes. This scene is from a clothes shop and shows that it is late in the night when all the nights have been switched off and everybody has left. In this a male dress comes out of the hanger and starts dancing. In a matter of a few seconds, he is joined by other people in the form of the clothes (bodiless) dancing around the store. The portrayal is of both men and women dancing like crazy together thinking of nothing else except the night, and that are also the wordings of the song played in the background. This keeps on going and the dresses are still dancing when the commercial ends and the message of Cadbury, a glass and a half full of joy shows with the same music playing in the background (YouTube, 2011).

Pantene Shampoo
Pantene in next in the list and it is to be noted that Pantene is one of most used shampoo around the globe. This then focuses directly on the women in the world and is an important variable if one is to analyze how women solely are portrayed around the globe. The commercial for Saudi Arabia for the product Pantene is basically a 30 seconds advertisement in which a girl alone is shown to be having fun in the sea and on the sea shore. Because of the water and the moisture, she expresses her concern about her hair. The entire
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advertisement is in Arabic language and therefore could not be understood. However, the gender role depicted could be seen. This advertisement then will be seen in special reference with the telecom commercials that are discussed in the next part of this section. The girl in this ad then is shown to express her satisfaction with the fact that Pantene is there in her life and that through the use of Pantene, her hair actually become soft, shiny, strong and amazingly beautiful. The adv ends on the face of the girl and is basically depicting her beauty. Interestingly, the advertisement played for the Pakistani market is the one actually made for the Indian masses and star a famous Indian movie star Katrina Kaif. In the advertisement, which presents one of the amazing examples of cinematography, Katrina Kaif is talking about how the constant styling of her hair through blow drying and straightening has made it necessary to get her hair cut at the end. She basically tells the audience that she always wanted long her but because of the split end and damaged, this was made difficult and she had to get her hair chopped off each and every time. She then tells the audience that she found her solution and the recognition of her wishes for long hair in the shape of Pantene. Then the bottle of Pantene shows as well as the amazing hair that the star gets because of the use of Pantene and on that, the commercial ends (YouTube, 2011). For India, the same commercial as Pakistan was broadcast as well. However, of the same theme, there were two other Pantene TV commercials. Both of these TV commercial starred Indian movie stars, some that were known for their beauty and styles and also because of their popularity in the film fraternity and amongst the masses. The two other actresses that played the same role for Pantene commercials were Shushmita Sen (ex Miss Universe) and Shilpa Shetty (once winner of big brother, London). The theme of the advertisements, as mentioned above, were same and the girls (in three individual ads) were sitting and telling the audience about their hair problems and how they got sorted out because of Pantene (YouTube, 2011). In basic, the role that the women played in these three advertisements in India, one of which was broadcast in Pakistan (mostly because of the popularity of Katrina kaif in the Pakistani masses and because she is actually considered to have an influence on the minds of the Pakistani people because of her beauty and innocence), were that they were supposed to look beautiful
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and give one reason for that beauty to the masses through which the masses overall will be influenced. The Pantene advertisement for the United States is starred by Stacy London who is in fact the brand ambassador for the United States for all Pantene products. The advertisement basically starts with Stacy giving information about the problems that hair face and then a scientific formulation emerges to show the making of the unique Pantene product. Two other girls, to show the curly hair and the straight hair look through Pantene are shown but only in glimpses. Even Stacy London is not shown that much and in fact, for the most part of the commercial, the scientific formulation and the bottles of Pantene are shown to the audience of the United States. For the advertisements of Pantene an almost smooth result was retrieved for the portrayal of women across the globe. It can be clearly seen that women around the globe are meant to be pretty, beautiful and well groomed. They are considered to be concerned about their hair, their styles and their looks. The hiring of superstar or public faces for this advertisement again depicts and reinforces the fact that prettiness for women is important not only for the societies as a whole, but also to the women who are and who aspire to be beautiful and well groomed.

Telecom Commercials
Before moving on with the actual description of these products, it has to be noted that the products selected in this criteria were all different. This is because different telecom organization operates in different countries and even if a telecom organization is multinational, its share in the mother market is considered to be more important. Therefore, the strongest telecom companies in each of the countries have been taken and their advertisements have been analyzed for the gender roles. The telecom advertisement for Saudi Arabia was for the leading telecom organization in the country by the name of Saudi Telecom Company. The advertisement starts with four men receiving short service message on their phones. All four of them are shown to be businessmen and all four of them are shown to be tracked by another agency who has them on camera at all times and is watching all four of them on screens at the same time. The four businessmen
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travel, each through a different mode of transportation, one travels by car, and one takes a yacht, one takes a helicopter and the last is shown to be travelling through a heavy bike and it is not sure through the ad at that time as to where their destination is and whether or not they are aware of each others presence or not. The scenes basically show that the four men are travelling at high speed and that speed at the moment and long route are the only important thing. Then, the network of the agency tracking these men is shown to fail and the screens turn blur whereas the four men are still shown to be in complete connectivity because of the network that the Saudi Telecom Company has provided them (YouTube, 2011). Very clearly, the missing of women in the business field is there. The same advertisement for the other three countries hardly show any discrimination considering the fact that phones are a commodity that is to be used by everyone irrespective of their gender. In other parts of the world, women (at least one to depiction so that women in the society could relate to that role and therefore be influenced by that products advertisement) would have been shown to have a role in the advertisement, but owning to the culture of Saudi Arabia, this is not the case. The advertisement for Pakistan focuses on the culture of Pakistan quite similar to the way commercial for Saudi Arabia focuses on its. The telecom organization chosen for the study of Pakistan is ufone. This is one of the leading service providers in the country and is linked to the once government landline network. The advertisement analyzed for ufone is the one that promotes the ladys package. The advertisement starts with a scene from a kitchen of a family in which two children a husband, a wife, the husbands parents and his brother are shown to be living. The wife in this is shown to be serving breakfast and is depicted to be extremely busy and careful as to what everybody wants. She is shown to be a perfect housewife and the understanding of the scenes is aided by the customized song that is being sung in the background. The second seen shows the wife to be ironing the clothes which the brother in law does not care about spoiling and then shes shown to cook, wash, sew and do literally everything that a perfect house wife is required to do. The problem however is that nobody seems to even consider that she is doing so much; everybody except ufone! The scene then changes in which the setup is of a royal palace and the family is sitting and waiting for the queen who is actually the wife. The queen is presented with a lavish treasure which is in fact an
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ufone SIM which is allowing her to make unlimited calls at very low rates. The rest of the family then is shown to be subservient to the wife (YouTube, 2011). In a way, this advertisement is similar to the Pakistani advertisement for Cadburys. Moving on to the third analysis of advertisement, the Indian advertisement for a telecom network again was for the leading telecom company, Reliance mobile. In this, a couple is shown to be travelling in the car and are whining over their mobile with the respective friends about how their partner is making their life miserable and how they are actually loads of trouble and that nothing that they do actually turn out to be right. The fight is basically about the fact that they are getting late for a movie and both of them consider it to be the other persons fault. After a while however, the talk time in the guys phone ends and the girl tells rubs the fact in his face and says that her network is reliance which gives unlimited talk time at the most affordable rates. The commercial then ends when the girl tells the driver of the car that madam is always right because of the fact that she is using reliance mobile network (YouTube, 2011). No particular role of gender is depicted. It is not clear as to whether the couple is married or are living in together in which case this is will a particularly modern advertisement even considering the Indian, fast moving culture. One important thing however is the culture of equal authority that is shown to exist between the two genders as the couple orders the driver and whines to one anothers friends on each other. The final country for the final product was United States of America. The telecom organization selected for the United States of America is AT & T. the commercial shows a scene of the grand central station where everybody is in their own routine and is shown to be busy. The camera turns to focus on one guy, who is wearing a long coat and is reading a newspaper always in the middle of the station. The guy eyes the clock in the station and as soon as the clock strikes 12, the guy throws the newspaper, takes of his coat and starts dancing like crazy. After a while he realizes that he is the only one doing this and that the rest of the public in the station is actually staring at him in which the female worker at the station and a couple are highlighted by the camera. As the guy stops, he receives the text message that the Flash Mob has been moved to 12 30 instead of 12. The idea is that he basically receives the message the last and that is why

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he actually made a fool out of himself in the public. The rest of people are just disappointed by the network that the guy uses. The background then says that for receiving the messages instantly use AT & T as the mobile network. There is no hint of focus on any one gender. Women are shown to be working, socializing, moving at will and be critical of men publicly (YouTube, 2011).

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Chapter Five: Conclusion

So what has the dissertation, with its research methodology, aims and objectives, its culture related advertisement studies and its data analysis boiled down to? Basically, this dissertation has focused upon the question as to whether culture as a strong element and an influential factor in the society affects the way that the gender roles are portrayed in the society. Advertisement is an important overall link in the marketing function of the business and this link has a strong impact on the overall performance of the organization as far as the sales of a product are concerned. This simple logic behind this phenomenon is that the more the people in the society know about a particular product, and the more they are attracted towards it and are aware of its benefits and features, the more will be the overall revenue generation for that product by the customers mainly because more customers will be coming for the purchase of that product (Kotler, 2009). It has been studied in this dissertation through the review of literature that if the link of the advertising that an organization does falls weak, its sales are affected and therefore, the organization has to manage its advertisement functions in the most strategic manners possible. One important element when deciding upon the advertisement functions for an organization is the consideration of the cultures of the society that the organization is working in. for example, taking an example of a multinational organization such as Unilever which is producing fast moving consumer goods and is facing tough competition for organization such as proctor and gamble, applying the same advertising strategy all around the world to its businesses will basically not maximize the returns for Unilever. In the arena of tough competition where the other organizations will be trying to gain each and every bit of competitive advantage that they can get, this will actually make unilever worse off. This is because, one society of the world, for example Pakistan may be affected by affective television commercials more than attractive billboards when it is about the purchase of a particular product and another society, lets say United States may be affected more by online advertisements than television commercials. If

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the organization is to maximize its gains from an advertising strategy, it has to make sure that it is one which focuses on the characteristics and the behaviours of the people that it is targeting. In this talk about the culture and its impact on advertising decision, strategies and implications of the organization, one important cultural factor that this paper focused upon was gender. It has been learnt through the paper that gender is an important element for everybody and is something through which a person is able to relate to a particular situation and be more affected by it. For example, a woman would relate better to the other women being shown to be not given time by her husband than by a man whining about how his wife spends too much of his hard earned money. The literature review presented in chapter two of this report focuses on the importance of gender and how various schools of thoughts build literature on it. One important theory that the literature review noted was that the concept of gender is actually purely cultural and neither religious or naturally occurring and therefore, the concept of gender would be found to be variable across cultures. The point that the feminists tried to prove through this was that men in each society have tried to mould the concept of gender for their own benefits and authority in the society and have therefore distorted the naturally occurring system for the two genders which were originally meant to live in equality. Nonetheless, it was found that distorted or forcefully created or not, gender played an important psychology, personal and social role in the understanding and the behaviours of the people in a society and therefore, given a function that is targeting a particular behaviour out of those very people in the society, the consideration of gender and its implications is a must. This research then shed light on the impact of culture on gender related advertisement. About gender related advertisement it has been found that the gender role portrayed in commercials and ads have a significant impact on how the people in the society perceive the product. This then is found to have an impact on the overall buying behaviour of those people. Also, again, to maximize the return of a particular advertisement campaign, it is important to take into consideration how various gender roles will be perceived and then reacted upon.

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The data collection was done by seeing the television commercials for four products in four countries of the world. These products were all operative in all of the four countries that were selected and the point of doing this was just that the advertisement of the product as broadcasted in each country could be studied. The secondary data then, basically studied the previously created literature on the topic and on collecting information about the four cultures taken into consideration. These four countries were Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, United States of America and India. The findings of the research are then found to be consistent with what was expected that is, various cultures are found to have a role to play on the kinds of advertisement that are created for a particular society. The most significant case for this was that of Saudi Arabia and the role of women that was depicted in the advertisement. Out of the four advertisement studied, only one advertisement starred a woman (for the advertisement of Pantene) and that too, the only role that she was playing was to look beautiful, all alone on the beach, without anybody staring at her or appreciating or discouraging her beauty. Saudi Arabia then has been found to be a country where there are strict discriminating laws against women. first and foremost, girls are not allowed the right to higher education in the country, girls are not allowed to drive at all, they are not allowed to work in a professional organization and finally, they are not even allowed to vote or stand up for a national seat. At most, in Saudi Arabia, the role of the women is restricted to providing an element of pleasure for the men and also for raising children and caring for the home for which the man is the sole breadwinner. Interestingly, the advertisement for the Saudi Telecommunication company very significantly portrayed this gendered culture by eliminating all women from the overall depiction of business and professional meeting between people. Next, even in the advertisement for coca cola, it is significantly visible on the scene when the two cars stop simultaneously on a traffic signal and no woman is allowed to have access to socializing (also visible in the concert seen where no woman is shown) and driving. Coming next, to the gender roles and the culture of Pakistan as depicted in the advertisements made for the country, it was found that the role of the women was most specific ones again to
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the household. The most significant role that was depicted for the women in Pakistan (especially as shown through the advertisement of ufone and Cadbury) was that they care for their family, their household, and their kids and that they are versatile and sentimental when it comes to that. Through the culture study for Pakistan, it was found that by law women in the country are under no obligation to do anything and that by law they are granted almost the same rights as the men. However, the social norms and the culture of the country are different than the law and that most women are found to be non working house wives even in the urban centres. It was however depicted through the advertisements (of coca cola especially) that girls do socialize in co gathering and that they have no restrictions upon what they should or should not wear or what they should or should not do. Moving on next is the society of United States of America, where freedom and equality was found to rule. And this was consistent both in the culture study and the advertisement study findings. In all four of the advertisement, Pantene, coca cola, AT & T and Cadbury, men and women were found to be standing on equal ground. The portrayal of gender then was actually much less significant in magnitude for the advertisement in the United States of America then in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Finally, for the fourth and final society studied, the same holds to be true. Through the cultural study it was found that gender roles in India are substantially on the move and that even though there is an inclination towards male domination (especially in the conservative and traditional rural sects) and that practices such as the killing of baby girls and torture of wife is still practiced, overall the advertisements for India portrayed and open and equal society in which women were found to have all the rights that a man was found to found. Most of all this was visible through the advertisement of coca cola in which women were found to be free and authoritative in the same way as the men of the society were found to be. The equality of authority was mostly visible through the ad of reliance telecommunication network and the freedom of choice was visible through the Cadbury advertisement. Overall, the research has concluded through the focus on its data results that the cultures of the country have a significant impact on how the advertisement policies are made in the
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organization regarding a product and that this role can be most important seen for the multinational organization. Advertising managers then, need to take this finding into consideration and apply it for the overall benefit of their organization as operating in a particular society. Especially in regards to the multinational organizations, since local cultures are not directly inbuilt or inherited by the organizations management, focus needs to be placed on the understanding of the various cultures and the gender roles and expectations in the culture and the alignment of the advertisements according to them.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90y4L2pDBeM YouTube. (2011). Coca Cola Ad for Pakistan. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro7u0FjMMBI YouTube. (2011). Coca Cola Ad for India. Available at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LP4t5kvAyQ YouTube. (2011). Coca Cola Ad for USA. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnUKurl7Fog YouTube. (2011). Cadbury Ad for Pakistan. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlB4hFTAxOo YouTube. (2011). Cadbury Ad for India. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao9jBTpjmO4 YouTube. (2011). Cadbury Ad for USA. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk4U2uJuFAI YouTube. (2011). Pantene Ad for Saudi Arabia. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfH7309ZS-0 YouTube. (2011). Pantene Ad for Pakistan. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLuVoqArKh0

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YouTube. (2011). Pantene Ad for India. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLuVoqArKh0 YouTube. (2011). Pantene Ad for USA. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEYjJzk5ChQ YouTube. (2011). STC Ad. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQk1gKVN0Vg YouTube. (2011). Ufone Ad. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXGhest06FE YouTube. (2011). AT&T Ad. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd8ppk0UCx8 YouTube. (2011). Reliance Network. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ_U2ggRJBw

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Appendix A: Tabularized Culture Findings with respect to Gender

Depicted Role of Women in society Depicted authority of women in society

Saudi Arabia low

Pakistan mediocre

India high

USA High

low

mediocre

Strongly growing

High

Depicted low gender equality Role of High men in society Depicted low Freedom of gender speech

Relatively low High

Strongly growing High

High

High

mediocre

high

High

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