Women more often seen and not heard in adverts, study finds

Sanchia Temkin

Professional Services Editor

Business Day

A GROUND-breaking study on gender and advertising in Southern Africa by lobby group Gender Links has found that while women are more likely to feature in advertising than in news content they are more likely to be seen than heard.

The report on the study released yesterday said women predominated in billboards and still images but hardly featured in voice-overs. In stills, blatant stereotypes were at their worst.

Covering 1650 radio, television, print and billboard advertisements in SA, Mauritius, Zambia and Zimbabwe, the study aimed to establish how women and men are represented and portrayed in advertising.

Monitoring took place over two weeks in December followed by male and female focus group discussions on selected case studies that were used in the report to amplify the quantitative findings.

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Bizcommunity.com launches into Africa

After leading the South African business-to-business and online media in publishing daily news to the media, marketing and advertising community in South Africa, Bizcommunity.com is launching into Africa to provide our readers on the continent and advertisers with comprehensive and durable content country by country – adding to the 800 000 newsletters it already distributes monthly with SA-specific content in this industry.

Launching into the English-speaking territories on the continent to start with, Bizcommunity.com will on Thursday, 15 March 2007, go live with www.africa.bizcommunity.com in a total of 15 countries (including adjacent islands) that are deemed to be the prime movers in Africa north of South Africa. These are: Algeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Seychelles, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. All of these countries have well developed communications and their advertising, marketing and media industries are robust and pro-active.

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