Gender representation in fragrance advertisements

This study aims to investigate the extent to which the verbal and non-verbal language use in male and female fragrance advertisements reflects gender stereotypes. The samples consist of 14 fragrance for males and 13 for females which were published in male and female monthly magazines regarded as today’s most popular fashion magazines: GQ male magazine and ELLE female magazine, from January 2010 to July 2011. What was analyzed was fragrance names and taglines together with the models’ facial expressions, posture and clothes as well as the advertisement background.
The results revealed that the selected fragrance advertisements somewhat reflected gender stereotypes through language use. About two-fifths of the selected advertisements did not represent gender characteristics partly because they focused more on their brands.