Offensive Advertising with sexist appeal: an analysis between two generations

Abstract

Today’s consumers are constantly bombarded with advertising messages of all types, like tv commercials, newsletters, printed ads, display advertisements and many others, through multiple media channels. Given all the information to which consumers are exposed, it frequently happens that they do not pay much attention to ads, making the job of advertisers much harder. Many advertisements today are designed to “cut through the clutter”, in order to distinguish themselves from the others. Often advertisers do so by using controversial advertising to arouse discussion among consumers and the audience exposed to it. Controversial adverting though has a twofold effect, it can elicit positive reactions, but can also lead to negative ones when it becomes offensive. This thesis aims to investigate the effects of offensive advertising with sexist appeal among women. In particular the analysis concerns the attitudes of women belonging to two different generations to see weather age is a factor which affects how potentially offensive advertisements impact women’s attitudes towards the ads, the brand and if this has an effect on their purchase behaviour.