Female stereotypes in graphic ads of luxury fashion, perfumery and cosmetic brands

Abstract

This article’s main goal is to identify more frequent stereotypes portrayed in advertisements of luxury fashion, perfumery and cosmetic brands in Spain. We have replicated 2010 Díaz-Soloaga, Muñiz y Quintas research to prove if feminine representation have experiment any evolution during this period of years. At the same time, as a seminal research, we have look at the representation of the perfumery and cosmetic ads isolated from the whole sample to demonstrate if they have different characteristics on their own.

In order to conduct this research we applied a content analysis to 164 ads published in Elle, Glamour, Marie Claire, Telva y Vogue. Results demonstrate that the physical representation of women has not changed (white, thin, beautiful and young). The final data manifest that manifest that the four stereotypes found in the total sample are almost the same to the ones found years ago, even though two stereotypes –passive woman and fragile woman– are substitute by a new stereotype named affective success woman. On the other hand, perfumery and cosmetic ad stereotypes are similar to the ones found in the whole sample.