Alizée RIBARIC PGE3

GRADUATING PROJECT: MILESTONE #2

Title: Literature review about interdependencies between women representation and digital marketing

Abstract:
The perception of women in society represents a challenge for companies because it allows them to
understand the emerging feminist, marketing trends among the younger and older generations. Indeed, the
perception of women in society is largely influenced by digital marketing and the messages sent via this
communication channel. Thus, the younger generations, who use social networks more than previous
generations, are more affected by this transformation of the perception of women through digital marketing.
In this study, we propose social representations to analyze the perception of women by consumers of digital
marketing and thus propose a trend of evolution within society.

Key Words: Marketing digital, women representation, social network, social representations

Rennes School of Business 2021

Summary

Introduction 1
1 - Women representation and digital communication 2
1.1 - The evolution of women representation through generational transition 2

1.2 - Digital Marketing and social network: the new normal, the new woman? 3

1.3 - Brands’ responsibility on woman representation in society towards young consumers 4

2 - A methodological approach through social representation 5

2.1 - Social representation technique: a spontaneous representation of a concept 5

2.2 - Process of analysis and target 6

Conclusion 8
Bibliography 9
Introduction

Digital marketing evolved quickly with the development of the information technologies. In the
contemporary world, it is a key point of new marketing strategies and a predominant factor of success for
companies. Through digital marketing, companies are giving consumers a vision of the society and
algorithms allow very personalized advertising. Thus, each consumer has its own representation of social
categories in correlation to digital marketing, which also include women’s representation.

In this report we will present the link between women’s representation and digital marketing by using social
representations. A social representation is a process by which we interpret, simplify, or orient reality trough a
reconstruction, toward the object (Abric, 1994). As digital marketing users are part of all categories of
society, social representations allow to analyze each individual in his social group and to understand his
perception of women in society.

Social Networks, helped to free the speech of women and minorities, which was the driver of several social
movements. Thus, it helped changed opinions in society, in correlation with digital marketing. Social
networks participate in social representation of women.

Knowing the influence of digital marketing on women’s representation would allow companies to position
accurately their communication strategy. Women representation depends on subjectivity, but also culture, the
role of women is not the same around the world. Indeed, digital marketing is personalized marketing in
anticipation or to respond to societal changes and has an effect on the collective consumer experience. In this
process, the use of social representations is appropriate because it will give a general idea of what is
women’s representation and the differences within societies according to digital marketing consumption.
Studies on the social representation highlighted the importance of putting reality into words and process face
to changes (Moscovici, 1976; Jodelet, 1989).

Women representation in digital media is different for each individual and is thus complex to analyse. The
notion of representation will vary according to which digital media are consumed, where and in which
quantity. The objective of this report is to understand the role of digital marketing on women’s representation
among all generations.
To which extend women’s representation is influenced by digital marketing consumption in western Europe?
We will present a literature review about the evolution of women’s representation over time and digital
media, then we will present the socials representation methods.

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1 - Women representation and digital communication

1.1 - The evolution of women representation through generational transition

Women representation is wide and will depend on several factors such as, culture, history, religion and each
country as its own. Looking thought the lens of equivalences, the concept of women’s representation could
be assimilated as a conceptual equivalence. For instance, two countries with opposite values won’t have the
same representation of women. A part of this difference is based on the masculinity or feminine dimension of
culture, as observed by Hofstede (1998).

However, whatever the country women representation and role in society is narrowly linked to gender
representation. Indeed, past centuries have seen many changes as right to vote, divorce, abortion for women.
Men’s and women’s representation have changed consequently over time and over generations. For instance,
the generation born before the World War II had a bipolar gender conception, where women were staying at
home to care for the children and men were at work, providing his family with provision. In 1968, the
cultural revolution deeply changed the vision of women and the role of gender in the society. Other social
revolution occurred, and changed the representation of women for next generations until today (Stockemer
and Sundstrom, 2019).

The achievements of these revolutions have become the norm for the generations to come. Each generation
give the next one its progress, whether political or economic, and these changes generate cultural evolution
within the society, this is called modernization theory (Inglehart et al., 2017). Compared with the previous
generation, each generation should embrace values such as gender equality, environmental protection and
respect for marginalized groups (such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people) (Yeganeh, 2017).
According to modernization theory, acquired value during childhood will remain stable throughout an adult’s
life (Stockemer and Sundstrom, 2019).

Thus, modernization has an effect on women’s representation through urbanization, women’s increased labor
force participation and the development of the tertiary sector (Stockemer and Sundstrom, 2016). As these
values are acquired by a new generation during childhood, they stay when subjects are adult, and thus more
and more women live in urbanized area, are educated, and have access to high responsibility work. Since the
80’s, the traditional family model where husband is the first source of revenues change in favor of a dual-
revenue system in which both partners have a job (Devallet-Ezanno, 2008).

Furthermore, modernization theory is supported by social movements of gender liberation like #metoo,
which affected new generations has the heritage of the previous generation and had an influence on women’s
representation. The #MeToo movement highlights toxic masculinity and men abuse, and settles the
importance of consent (Johnson and Renderos, 2020). The consequences of #metoo were wide, the
movement consequently shaped the opinion of the new generation, especially because it took place through
social networks and that most users are young.

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However, we can’t exclude older generation from the study of women’s representation through digital
marketing, as older consumers technology adoption rate increase rapidly (Nunan and Di Domenico, 2019).
Also, the use of digital media is not dictated by the age, but is related to the timing and history of exposure
(Charness and Boot 2009; Prensky, 2001) and to family members or friends who are social media users
(Friemel, 2016). This implies that a significant part of older generation is exposed to digital marketing, but
through different platforms than you’re generations.

Consequently, we can assume women representation changed from generation X, Y, Z to Alpha, as the
gender concept evolved, and that all those generations don’t have the same exposition to digital content,
which accelerate those changes.

1.2 - Digital Marketing and social network: the new normal, the new woman?

Digital marketing, also commonly referred to as digital marketing, refers to all marketing techniques used in
digital media and channels, in opposition to radio, newspaper, or television. The digital marketing increase
was in correlation with the globalization of digitalization and its accessibility to mass market. Generation Z
and Alpha have grown with digital marketing, and gen Z is sometimes referred as « digital natives », because
they are the first generation to use this new technology (Prensky, 2001).

Thus, it is not a coincidence if those social changes occur now, occidental societies reached a high level of
economics and physical security through digitalization, and those factors encourage acceptance of gender
equality, homosexuality, and other behaviors repressed by agrarian societies (Inglehart et al., 2017). Also,
those changes are occurring faster than for other social shifts (Inglehart et al., 2017), which can be linked to
the rapidity of communication brought by information technology, and are long-run fight; women’s battle for
gender equality began during the nineteenth century (Inglehart et al., 2017; Stockemer and Sundstrom, 2019)
but has greatly developed in the last 20 years, several generations after it begin, thanks to the economics and
physical security.

Today, content creator changed the representation of women in social media, they redefined the rules of
conventional representation of women in mainstream media by giving their own vision, mostly more
illustrative of real women. Self-representation practices, such as selfies or vlogs, also allowed women to take
back the control of their image in public (O’Connor, 2018). In the same movement, women influencers
spread the trend of body positivism and non sexualized nudity to take back the control of their bodies and to
influence women’s representation. This action caused several controversies, especially because a social
media algorithm (Instagram) was giving more visibility to a certain type of body corresponding to the
stereotype of Caucasian beauty (O’Connor, 2018), which rose concerns about how female model are pictured
on Instagram branded content with sexualisation and ‘skinny' body image (Rezai, 2020).

A study about feminine nudity in advertising conducted in 2005 showed interesting results; women studied
were more shocked about the representation of women in advertising rather than by nudity. The first reason
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was the attitude of models in advertisements, women were pictured as cold, skinny, and inaccessible, far
away from the everyday life women (Manceau and Tissier-Desbordes, 2005). Despite the recent evolution in
women’s representation, the results of this study published 16 years ago aren’t far away from nowadays
concern about women’s representation in social networks. This representation has an impact on the young
generation as marketing shapes the consumer social identity, and influence his actual and desired attitude
(Stanković et al. 2018). This issue highlights the limits of digital marketing in the evolution and amelioration
of women's representation compared to the weight of stereotypes and the power of desired self in marketing.

Regarding that Instagram users are mostly between 18 to 24 years old, and use the application daily,
sometimes several hours per days, concerns can also be formulated about women’s representation among this
category of consumer if they are exposed to the stereotypical perfect body every day. Advertising has a huge
impact on how society perceives individuals, and especially when they are under-represented as seniors (Bai
2014; Szmigin and Carrigan 2001), which also raises the question of old women's representation in digital
marketing.

1.3 - Brands’ responsibility on woman representation in society towards young consumers

Nowadays, digital marketing sends opposed signals: on one hand women are pictured as modern, active, and
of all shapes, and on the other hand, perfect, skinny, body is emphasized in advertising and on social
networks. This shows that the traditional codes of marketing are still existing and used by brands to push
consumers to buy, sometimes mixed with new feminist trends.

A lot of brands are promoting body positivism on social networks to sell product, this is simply the use of the
emotional dimension to bring more trust in the brand from a consumer perspective. Brand with strong
emotional stimulus from consumer generates better sales and have a better level of credibility compared to
competitors (Stanković et al., 2018), marketing sells values and desired self. Emotional stimulus is very
persuasive in advertisement, especially on woman. As a study showed women responded more to emotional
advertisement than man, plus, women are more attracted by situations they can relate to, or celebrities
(Stanković et al., 2018).

Emotional marketing has thus a huge impact on teenagers, especially girls that are looking for themselves,
largely exposed to influencers promoting a certain lifestyle and appearance, and endorsing the role of
celebrity and examples for them. Marketing presents an unreal reality which is supposed to be considered
normal or the ideal to reach in society. It thus has the power to influence consumers’ perception of self as
abnormal, and cause problems such as unhealthy diet, depression, and personal dissatisfaction (Hayko,
2010). Young consumers are buying the product to reach the ideal representation which is sold in the ad, the
lifestyle, the ideal body, they are buying who they wish to be, not the product.

The trend of gendered product also emphasis the spread of stereotypes within the society. Consumers that
own gender-typical products are perceived more physically attractive, sexier and more desirable partners
(Borau and Bonnefon, 2020). Gendered products are omnipresent in marketing, and children are exposed to
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these very early in their life. Children quickly build a cognitive representation of gender roles (masculine and
feminine) from information available in their environment (McKenney and Bigler, 2016). Thus they are
highly influenced by gender differentiation and the relationship of power between men and women.
Consequently, the phenomenon of sexualisation is highly developed in western societies, and is widely
shared through digital content. Early adolescent girls are more likely to develop sexualized identities due to
their exposure to sexualized media with less parental restriction, as they grow, message are becoming more
common and control less present (McKenney and Bigler, 2016). Appearance, and clothes, are the mean of
expression for teenagers (Rezai, 2020), and is an important mirror of the personal values and identity (Crane,
2000; Davis, 1992). Sexualized advertisements, widely spread through digital media, certainly affect
women’s representation in the society, and brand have a responsibility in women’s representation. However,
generation Z and Alpha tend to go for non-gendered products, which can be the beginning of a new gender,
and thus new woman representation that can be an opportunity for marketers.

2 - A methodological approach through social representation

2.1 - Social representation technique: a spontaneous representation of a concept

Social representation is a highly developed field of social psychology (Abric, 2003; Jodelet, 1989;
Moscovisci, 2003, Moliner, 1993), but it is rarely used in marketing (Gardes et al., 2013; Lebrun & Bouchet,
2010). It is a product and a process of mental activity. Individuals or a group of individuals uses this product
and process to reconstruct reality and give it a specific meaning: it is called social thought (Abric, 2003).

Moscovici (2003) explained that representations enable individuals to adapt and interpret our daily reality
and our relationship with the world. It can organize and structure the environment through categorization
(Abric, 2003). It is called social because individuals interact and develop in the environment with others and
also interact with socially recognized norms and values, and the social group to which they belongs.

A social representation has 3 characteristics (Moscovici, 2003): the accessibility of information or

knowledge relating to the object under analysis, the specific position of the social group with respect to this
object and the need for individuals to develop a discourse and a coherent behavior on a social object.

Therefore, social representation is the reconstruction of reality with the aim to explain and simplify it, and to
direct behavior toward the object (Abric, 1994). They allow consumers to explain and prove their position,
decisions, and behaviors after the fact thanks to their proof function. Moreover, social representations have
an identity function, meaning that they allow a series of inter-group and intra-group differentiation processes
to illustrate a person’s identity and a social identity that is as active as possible (Breakwell, 1993).

Social representation theory (Moscovici, 1961) is a theoretical and methodological framework used to study
relationships between a brand search identity and the brand representation that have the consumers (Lebrun
and Bouchet, 2010). Social representations are collectively established and shared through a global

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communication network (Moscovici, 1961) but they can vary according to individuals and their analyzed
social group.

Finally, social representations are tools to identify market structural elements and shareholders from
principal word associated with them by consumers. The central core theory allows to integrate the structure
and the organisation of a social representation (Abric, 1994). It is defined as a hierarchical structure of
cognitive elements, and among them some are core elements and play a key role in the representation, when
others are less important and thus, left in periphery.

The central core is part of the common base around which the representation articulates itself and allows to
give sense to the gathering of all the elements of the representation, and organise them. The periphery system
is determined by the individual characteristics of subjects by a group, and through immediate context the
group is in. Thanks to his own lived experiences and event of life this process allows each individual to
create a personalized modulation of the representation.

2.2 - Process of analysis and target

To analyze the results of the social representation of women, the word association technique is the best fit as
it is widely used to understand the findings (Di Giacomo, 1981; Le Bouedec, 1984; De Rosa, 1987). It also
"allows the actualization of implicit or latent elements that would be drowned out or masked in discursive
productions" (Abric, 2003). To best reflect social representation, the collection associative data allow
spontaneous responses and ideas.

To have a wide range of data to analyse, we are going to launch a data collection during the month of April
2021 among different social media. The targeted participants are all society members, from 99 to 13 years
old, who identify as men, women, or others, as long as they are exposed to digital marketing. The targeted
social media are the most used ones, wide enough to give large results in terms of age, gender, country,
regarding the most used ones among generation in the different areas studied: Facebook, Instagram,
Snapchat, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Twitch, Reddit.

The participants will be asked to write down the words that came to their mind when they think about
women as to capture their own representation (What do you think about women in general? What are the
words that come to your mind when you think about women?).

I chose to focus on all generations to see the evolution of women’s representation, and eventually its
evolution in a non-gendered society. As the results for the younger generation will certainly be more
important compared to older ones due to a higher media consumption, I will focus on their definition of
« women representation » and to what digital content it is related, as it represent new market opportunities
for companies.

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The central core theory (Vergès, 1992) will be useful to analyze the data as it is quick, easy to use, and also
permits the spontaneity of the subject who can answer freely to the question. A prototypical and categorical
analysis of the data will be conducted. The prototypical analysis is the classification of words regarding their
frequency and rank of appearance, the more is higher the more the word has been used to describe the
subject of study. On the contrary, a high rank will apply to a word said last by the respondent.

A four-boxes table help to analyze the results, it represents the structure of the social representation in
relation to the central core theory:

Average rank

Central zone Potential change zone

High frequency and low rank High frequency and high rank
(Case 1) (Case 2)
Average frequency
Potential change zone Peripheral zone
Low frequency and low rank Low frequency and high rank
(Case 3) (Case 4)

The central zone gathers the most salient elements (Vergès, 1994), whereas the peripheral zone represents
more individualistic elements. The potential zone of change represents low frequency words and said in first
position as well as high frequency words but said in last position. Both zones represent elements
corresponding to central core representation at rather short or long-term.

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Conclusion

Women’s representation varies according to several factors: culture, generation, age, social status. The
concept of modernization can help us to understand the phenomenon of the evolution of women’s
representation throughout time. Several social movements are complementary to this evolution of women’s
representation through social networks.

Digital media are accelerators of women’s representation, and social shift in the society, especially among
the younger generation. Content creator changed the codes and rules of traditional marketing, and thanks to
social networks, women took back the control of their public image questioning their representation in
advertising.

This resulted in controversies, digital marketing and brands responsibility towards their audience was
highlighted. Behind the acceptance movements, the old fashioned representation of women within the
society was still present. Consumers must be aware of the risks of a long exposition to unrealistic digital
advertisements, and that despite the recent changes, the representation of women is still rooted in gender
stereotypes and sexualisation.

The social representations, as a spontaneous way of collecting data over a large sample, will help us to
identify the words that are defining women’s representation in society. The study will be conducted on social
media, representing each part of the society. We will use the four-boxes table to analyse the collected data
and draw women’s representation over generations as to see to which extend women’s representation is
influenced by digital marketing consumption.

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