Conclusions

The research aimed to illuminate the impact of gender norms on the portrayal of men and women in automotive advertising. This was done to determine if older traditional depictions of gender were visible in the 21st century as well as to find out which ways traditional gender roles have been challanged during that time period. The emergence of new gender portrayals in automotive commercials shows how gender norms have certainly changed marketing over time. While it would be much easier for marketing to change gender norms or for gender norms to change marketing that is not the case. Marketing and gender have an almost tidal relationship where those two aspects will be changing or will be getting changed by the other.

Advertisements are a form of social communication that reflect and reinforce cultural expectations and beliefs about gender (Goffman 1979) The results of this research show that gender norms have changed during the early 21st century to be more inclusive and gender-neutral. The advertisements themselves are a reflection of how cultural expectations and ideas about gender have changed. Most noticeably, gender norms began to change when the norm of “moms do dad things and dads do mom things” emerged in the Buick LeSabre commercial and from there began to grow into depictions of women in traditionally male-dominated positions of power. 

The economic impact of gender norms reinforcement was seen in a similar way; the depiction of women in “boss” type roles is an indicator that automotive marketing is moving away from traditional Western beliefs which communicate stereotypical gender norms to consumers, which reinforce patriarchal standards, and hurt women (Padovani 2006). Patriarchal and hyper-masculine ad campaigns no longer have the same economic benefits as more progressive campaigns. Gender norms appear to be changing, which can be seen in the savvy production of inclusive ads, in many cases. (The presentation of gender via marketing has shifted during the period under study, from 2000-2022. Today, cars may be advertised more for their features and functionality, and less for their sex appeal, which can challenge men’s traditional conceptions of masculinity and could make men avoid those products (Sovacoolab et al. 2023, Borinca et al. 2020). It would appear that marketers are no longer identifying men as the best, or at least only potential. The shift in ad campaigns over the past 23 years shows that these automotive companies have seen the benefits of marketing to women. Although women have been more of a marketing tool than a marketing concern within the automotive industry (Sanghvi & Hodges 2015), the advertisements of the 2020s show major progress from the 2010s in terms of gender portrayal. These changes in gender norms, overall, impacted the portrayals of men and women in automotive commercials from 2000 to 2023. Most recently men and women have  both been depicted as fulfilling non-traditional roles in ways that communicated normativity. 

For future research, it would be interesting to do a comparison between brands and models of cars to ascertain which types of cars are being marketed exclusively to men, or women and why. Additional future research could rank automotive brands by their gender inclusivity of their products.