The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) and Future brands, have unveiled the GenderNext study – a comprehensive actionable insight study on the representation of women in advertising. According to Lipika Kumaran, the lead author of GenderNext, the study reveals that while there are some positive moves, mainstream advertising still heavily borrows from an inventory of overused, and sometimes harmful stereotypical tropes.
The study proposes a category agnostic framework “The SEA (Self-esteemed – Empowered – Allied) Framework” that aims to guide stakeholders in imagining as well as evaluating portrayals of women in their advertising by building empathy and aiding evaluation. Santosh Desai, MD, Future brands Consulting said “The GenderNext study has identified some common patterns of discrimination and has also created a framework that enables marketers to identify and eliminate such undesirable representations.”