Is there gender bias when creative directors judge advertising? Name cue effect in ad evaluation

Abstract

A lack of women in creative departments has been documented in previous research. These departments are seen as a male fraternity subculture in advertising agencies, where women experience many difficulties in their career progress. One of these drawbacks is gender bias in the selection of ideas' process. Male creative directors are believed to promote ideas created by men within a homosocial environment. This female perception, that emerged from previous qualitative research, is studied experimentally for the first time. Almost 90 advertising creative directors and higher level positions, assessed ads created by students in an advertising university course. In the current study we explore the effects of ad gender authorship. Results revealed an absence of gender bias based on ad name cues, neither the gender of the ad creators nor the creatives affected the evaluations. The findings are discussed and future research is proposed.

The toll of success: Female leaders in the “women‐friendly” Greek advertising agencies

“…If they prove to be creative, effective, and democratic, they excel as leaders (Montes & Roca, 2016) and create more positions staffed with female candidates (Cohen & Broschak, 2013). However, experiments show that the creators' gender does not influence the assessment of their ideas (Roca et al., 2016).…”

“…This paper studies senior women executives in Greek advertising agencies, exploring if and how they experience gender discrimination; and the degree to which they can contribute to a culture that challenges male dominance, evident both in the advertising sector (Broyles et al., 2008; Cohen & Broschak, 2013; Montes and Roca, 2016; Roca et al., 2016; Torra & Grow, 2015; Windels & Mallia, 2015) and in Greek society (Tsouroufli, 2018, 2020).…”