How to Portray Men and Women in Advertisements? Explicit and Implicit Evaluations of Ads Depicting Different Gender Roles

The purpose of the current study was to gain more insight in the evaluation of advertisements containing different gender role portrayals (stereotypical/astereotypical) by examining explicit and implicit processes of ad evaluation. The results of two experiments showed an explicit preference for ads containing astereotypical images. Implicitly, we found a preference for ‘warm’ ads irrespective of the degree of gender stereotypicality of the ad. These findings suggest that complex stimuli such as ads may inhibit implicit gender stereotype activation. At an implicit level, warmth seems a better predictor of ad evaluation.