See Also: UWS Exercise Book
Freeman Jackson
UWS 16A—Sex and Advertising
Research Proposal
15 October 2019
How Queer is Queer in Contemporary Advertising?
Mainstream advertisements targeting and depicting non-heteronormative, queer people have become more and more commonplace since Ikea, Subaru, and Absolut placed their first gay and lesbian-oriented ads in the 1990s. The trend has accelerated since the United States Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015. With the increasing social acceptance of a diversity of gender identities, advertising has reportedly become more LGBTQ inclusive (Monllos, 2016; Singer, 2017). Even brands such as Axe, which for decades was identified with staunchly heterosexist and male-centered ads (Feifer, 2012), has changed its message to pursue a more progressive and gender-diverse market share (Jardine, 2016). Using previous studies to establish a baseline, this project will examine such questions as: Just how queer have queer ads become in the United States and—as a secondary focus—in global markets today? What norms and stereotypes do current ads promulgate, as compared to those observed in the past? Which formerly marginalized groups are still marginalized, and which have gained visibility? And what are the business calculations that are driving these changes?
I plan to address these questions first by reviewing existing literature to establish a baseline, and then by conducting my own research to extend the work of previous scholars to the present day. The advertising industry press is a rich source of information on past and current strategies, trends, and innovations in consumer marketing. More broadly based media have reported such success stories as Subaru’s targeting lesbian car buyers in the 1990s with coded messaging—imperceptible to conservative, anti-homosexual customers (Mayyasi, 2016) and Absolut Vodka’s campaign to become practically the official libation of Gay Pride though clever advertising in gay media and neighborhoods (Roberts, 2008; Um, 2016). Sociologists and experts in media studies, gender studies, and related fields have assessed brands’ selective deployment of LGBTQ types to convey the impression of edginess and open-mindedness. Gay men have been presented as representatives of affluence and good taste. “Hot,” feminine, lipstick lesbians, amenable to the heterosexual male gaze, have been featured to the exclusion of butch types. Depictions of same-sex couples have typically mimicked standard heterosexual tropes of marriage, commitment, nesting, child-rearing, and so forth. Seductive, curvaceous, transgender women have served as the punchlines of gotcha humor, while transgender men, who may be discomfiting or incomprehensible to heteronormative audiences, have been all but invisible (Gill, 2009; Tsai, 2010).
Although my work will be informed by laboratory studies (Cunningham and Melton, 2014; Drew 2016; Ivory, 2017), focus groups (Borgerson and Schroeder, 2006), and surveys (Pounders and Mabry-Flynn, 2016), I do not plan to emulate these methodologies. Instead, my project will reflect and build upon the work of Sunny Tsai (2010) who surveyed American television commercials dating back to 1994 as catalogued by AdRespect.org to identify and quantify the use of LGBTQ types such as those listed above. With reference to more recent work by Ana-Isabel Nölke (2018), who covers the period 2009-2015, I will focus on the current period—from the 2015 Supreme Court marriage decision to the present day—and build a dataset from AdRespect.org and other compilers of LGBTQ advertisements. I plan to include the relatively new genre of internet video ads, which were not prevalent at the time of Tsai’s article, to reflect the rise of internet advertising and the decline of traditional commercial television since 2010. From my preliminary investigation, I expect to find a greater diversity of transgender characters, which may be explained in part by differences between the self-selecting audiences of digital media and the broad, captive audience of commercial television. It will be interesting to see how the other tropes identified by Tsai (2010) and Gill (2009), such as the hot lesbian and the classy gay man, have evolved. Does today’s advertising include a wider range of types? Does it reflect or encourage a greater tolerance of gender difference? And do advertisers today have different or fewer concerns about the responses of conservative, heteronormative audiences?
The implications of this research are far-reaching and have the potential to reveal much about current social attitudes and trends over time. Like it or not, advertising occupies a central role in twenty-first century society; it is still the “magic system” that capitalism requires to function (Williams, 1960). The words, images, and totems of advertising are vastly influential; they continually reflect and reshape the cultural moment in the self-perceived interests of corporate power. Anyone interested in dismantling heteronormative tyrannies must be concerned with depictions of gender difference in consumer advertising. It remains to be seen whether perceptions of increased diversity can be confirmed by hard numbers. Assessment is also needed to determine whether increased visibility in advertising represents wider acceptance of non-traditional gender identities in the society at large. An aggregate increase in inclusion may reflect nothing more than technical advancements in niche-marketing, facilitated by the latest tools of data analysis and consumer targeting. In our polarized society, can gender-inclusive advertising bring us closer together, or could it be driving us further apart?
Preliminary Bibliography
AdRespect [LGBTQ advertising archive], CommercialCloset.org. This is a standard but not comprehensive resource. Like Nölke, I will also look for ads in other compilations. Borgerson, Janet L. and Jonathan E. Schroeder. “The Gay Family in the Ad: Consumer Responses to Non-Traditional Families in Marketing Communications.” Journal of Marketing Management, vol. 22, 2006, pp. 955-978. Useful for historical perspective. Cunningham, George, and E. Melton. “Signals and Cues: LGBT Inclusive Advertising and Consumer Attraction.” Sport Marketing Quarterly, vol. 23, no. 1, 2014, pp. 37-46. This article and the ones below by Drew, Pounders and Mabry-Flynn, and Um provide some useful hard data and additional perspectives on my topic.
Drew, Christopher. “Wholesome Homosexuality: Normative Childhoods in Same-Sex Family Advertisements.” Global Studies of Childhood, vol. 6, no. 3, 2016, pp. 324–335. See Cunningham.
Feifer, Jason. “Axe's Highly Scientific, Typically Outrageous and Totally Irresistible Selling of Lust.” Fast Company, no. 168, 2012, p. 104. The old cheerfully sexist Axe/Lynx. Gill, Rosalind. “Beyond the ‘Sexualization of Culture’ Thesis: An Intersectional Analysis of ‘Sixpacks,’ ‘Midriffs’ and ‘Hot Lesbians’ in Advertising.” Sexualities, vol. 12, no. 2, 2009, pp. 137–160. Not an IMRAD-format, scientific study but a seminal essay in the field. Nölke finds that the lipstick lesbian Gill identifies as particularly designed to titillate straight men was apparently (and mercifully) on the wane by 2015. This is one of the types that I will be looking for in more recent ads.
Jardine, Alexandra. “Axe Finally Grows Up with Call to ‘Find Your Magic’: Ad by 72andSunny Rejects ‘Rigid Male Stereotypes.’” AdAge, 13 Jan. 2016,
creativity-online.com/work/axe-find-your-magic/45062. About the new rebranded Axe/Lynx that embraces a diversity of masculinities and male sexualities. Mayyasi, Alex. “How Lesbians Became Subaru’s ‘Perfect Customers.’” Business Insider, 25 Jun. 2016. businessinsider.com/how-lesbians-became-subarus-perfect-customers-2016-6 The story of a brand targeting a queer market through coded (covert) messaging in mainstream media in the 1990.
Monllos, Kristina. “Brands Are Throwing Out Gender Norms to Reflect a More Fluid World.” Adweek, October 17, 2016. A trend-tracking article in the industry press. Nölke, Ana-Isabel. “Making Diversity Conform? An Intersectional, Longitudinal Analysis of LGBT-Specific Mainstream Media Advertisements.” Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 65, no. 2, 2018, pp. 224–255. Like Tsai, this is a model text for my study, in this case assessing ads from 2009-2015. My paper will bring the work of assessing LGBTQ advertising up to the present.
Pounders, Kathrynn, and Amanda Mabry-Flynn. “Consumer Response to Gay and Lesbian Imagery.” Journal of Advertising Research, vol. 56, no. 4, Dec. 2016, pp. 426-440. EBSCOhost, doi:10.2501/JAR-2016-047. See Cunningham.
Roberts, Joe. “25 the All New List.” AXM, July 2008, pp. 62-65. EBSCOhost, resources.library.brandeis.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=tr ue&db=qth&AN=32823893&site=ehost-live. This is about Absolut targeting the gay market.
Singer, Olivia “‘An Image Can Be Stronger Than an Army’: The Fashion Ads That Shook Society.” CNN Style. Updated 8 Sept. 2017. This article reports the introduction of trans models in fashion.
Tsai, Wan-Hsiu Sunny. “Assimilating the Queers: Representations of Lesbians, Gay Men, Bisexual, and Transgender People in Mainstream Advertising.” Advertising & Society Review, vol. 11 no. 1, 2010. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/asr.0.0042. Along with Nölke (see above), this is a model study for my project that I want to emulate and update.
Um, Nam-Hyun, et al. “Symbols or Icons in Gay-Themed Ads: How to Target Gay Audience.” Journal of Marketing Communications, vol. 21, no. 6, 2015, pp. 393–40. See Cunningham.
Williams, Raymond. “Advertising: The Magic System.” Advertising & Society Review, vol. 1, no. 1, 2000 (1960, 1968). Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/asr.2000.0016. A classic of advertising theory that argues advertising is central and necessary to capitalism.
Timeline
October 16-22. Read and compile notes on sources so far. Meet with research librarian to help find more sources to fill in holes in research so far.
October 23-29. Annotated bibliography due. Meet with instructor. Begin drafting literature review.
October 30-November 6. Gather and compile list of ads from adrespect.org, pink accuracast, etc. Determine scope of dataset. Begin watching ads and making lists of types and tropes.
November 7-13. Re-watch ads and select examples for close reading. Outline due. November 14-20. Write up close readings.
After Thanksgiving break, begin drafting introduction, thesis and motive. First week of December. Complete and hand in draft. Review peers’ drafts and meet with Instructor. Create Slides presentation and present 10-minute ad-talk in class. Second week of December. Write final revision of paper. Insert images and tables with captions. Proofread. Hand it in!
Doug Kirshen