Despite progress in big-game ads, representation doesn’t match reality

For much of its existence, the NFL’s big game has been home to ads that featured action, comedy, and plenty of men. When women were featured at all, there was a good chance they’d be sporting a bikini. In short, the ads in what has become the nation’s biggest TV event were made by men, for men. To a certain kind of marketer, it made a certain kind of sense. The assumption was that the game was watched predominantly by men. But that’s no longer the case. According to Nielsen, women have accounted for 46% to 47% of total Super Bowl viewership from 2014 to 2018. But the advertising running during the game hasn’t caught up to the people watching it. Why does this matter? Equal representation isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s good for business. In our ongoing work with The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, we found that marketing content on YouTube featuring female led and gender-balanced content attracted 30% more views than male-dominant videos, despite representing less than half of all the videos we studied. Read More…