Report highlights influence of women on viewership, identifies significant responsibility for media to ignite change in representation and portrayal of women, and the tremendous opportunity for advertisers and agencies to strategically align planning and buying practices to gender equitable and inclusive media
NEW YORK September 18, 2024 — SeeHer unveiled its 2024 GEM® Multiplatform Video Programming Report that serves as a beacon for strategic and inclusive media planning, aiming to reshape women’s narratives and highlight the best environments for advertising. This year’s report, a collaborative effort between SeeHer, Advertising Benchmark Index, Nielsen, Nielsen Gracenote Inclusion Analytics, and LG Ad Solutions continues to champion the accurate representation and portrayal of women in episodic content while setting benchmarks for equitable representation across multiple facets of linear and streaming platforms.
SeeHer is the global movement, within the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), to accurately portray women and girls in marketing, advertising, media and entertainment. SeeHer spearheaded GEM®, the global gold standard of measuring gender bias in advertising and content.
“At SeeHer, we are dedicated to the accurate representation of women and girls across all media platforms. There is still a tremendous opportunity around representation and appetite from our members for tools to support and guide them on their journey,” said Christine Guilfoyle, President of SeeHer. “Accurate representation is a multiplier and continues to drive business impact.”
To ensure the report and its findings remain comprehensive and aligned with industry shifts, SeeHer and their partners widened its scope, reaffirming the necessity of broad reach in media planning while also targeting specific audiences. Consequently, the guide encompasses gender-equitable programming reaching up to 97 percent of adult viewers, with an expanded focus on streaming platforms and a deeper look into the audience profile of gender-equality-minded multiplatform viewers to identify opportunities for reaching consumers in high-GEM®-scoring content.
“By ensuring accurate representation of women, we are setting a new standard for inclusivity and effectiveness in advertising. This evolution in media dynamics empowers us to drive substantial change and create a lasting impact on the portrayal and perception of women across all platforms,” said Monica Longoria, Head of Marketing Insights of LG Ad Solutions. “With the shift to CTV and women comprising at least 50 percent of its audience, it is great to see advertisers and content creators working to build an inclusive future for television.”
Some key highlights from this year’s report include:
Trends Across Media Platforms
- Broadcast shows were the key driver for authentic female portrayals, with 72 percent of broadcast shows delivering GEM® scores of 100 or more.
- The majority of cable shows (58 percent) also had high GEM® scores.
- 50 percent of streaming platform content had high GEM® scores.
Accurate Representation of Female Roles on and Off Screen
- Shows with women in leading and recurring roles and women behind the camera are the most scarce but are the best environments for advertising.
- 58 percent of the programs tested had accurate female portrayals.
- 40 percent had high GEM® scores or with recurring female talent on par with or above inclusion standards.
- Only 21 percent also had women in key roles behind the camera.
- Shows that had high GEM ® scores and were inclusive of women in front of and behind the camera scored a 114 index, eight points higher than those that offered on screen female representation alone.
- 67 percent of total viewers are more likely to watch a tv show or movie that accurately portrays women
“Building on last year’s findings, nearly 58 percent of tested programs have above-average GEM® scores, with approximately 40 percent achieving gender parity or better in on-screen representation, said Latha Sarathy, Chief Research Officer of the ANA and SeeHer. “However, only a small portion of high GEM® scoring content also features female roles behind the camera.”
ABOUT SEEHER
SeeHer is the global to champion the positive representation of women and the leading global movement to eliminate gender bias in marketing, media, and entertainment. Launched in 2016 by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) SeeHer’s coalition of leaders is committed to setting the gender equality agenda for the industry and driving growth for their businesses. To help its members benchmark success and become catalysts for change, SeeHer spearheaded the development of the Gender Equality Measure® (GEM®), the first research methodology that quantifies gender bias in ads and programming. Winning the prestigious ESOMAR Research Effectiveness Award, GEM® is the global measurement standard, proving that content accurately portraying women and girls dramatically increases purchase intent and brand reputation. SeeHer’s suite of training and resources, including GEM®, enables marketers to prioritize best practices as part of an always-on approach to driving growth. The movement includes the following vertical expertise: SeeHer in Sports, SeeHer Entertainment, SeeHer Health, and the SeeHer Media Task Force. Visit SeeHer.com to join the movement and follow SeeHer on LinkedIn and Instagram.
ABOUT ANA
The ANA’s mission is to drive growth for marketing professionals, for brands and businesses, and for the industry. Growth is foundational for all participants in the ecosystem. The ANA seeks to align those interests by leveraging the 12-point ANA Growth Agenda, which has been endorsed and embraced by the ANA Board of Directors and the Global CMO Growth Council. The ANA’s membership consists of over 1,400 domestic and international companies, including more than 900 client-side marketers and nonprofit fundraisers and 500 marketing solutions providers (data science and technology companies, ad agencies, publishers, media companies, suppliers, and vendors). Collectively, ANA member companies represent 20,000 brands, engage 50,000 industry professionals, and invest more than $400 billion in marketing and advertising annually.
ABOUT ADVERTISING BENCHMARK INDEX (ABX)
ABX is a techno-research company focused on driving ROAS & Profits through their Global Integrated Single Solution. Marketers through the ABX Global Multimedia/Multi Channel Platform can evaluate the effectiveness of all their creative and copy across all media types and channels, and against their competitors’ and other ads, representing approximately 90% of global ad spend. Other valuable consumer data is also available for making informed, time-sensitive business decisions. Designed by the visionaries, pioneers and inventors who helped create the methodologies used by legacy marketing research firms.
ABOUT LG AD SOLUTIONS
LG Ad Solutions is a global leader in connected TV and cross-screen advertising, helping brands find hard-to-get unduplicated reach at optimal frequency across the fragmented streaming TV landscape. LG brings years of experience in delivering premium and world-class Smart TVs worldwide. Its expansive, proprietary audience and video data, help brands create unique campaigns to foster connections between brands and audiences on the largest screen in the room.
Characteristics of High GEM® Content Viewer Households were based on matches between 2023 data provided by SeeHer Research and LG Ad Solutions Automatic Content Recognition. “High GEM® Content Viewer Households” were defined as households who watched content with highest GEM® scores (a standard deviation above the mean).
LG Ad Solutions also conducted an online survey of 1,082 women in the U.S. with an internet-connected TV (CTV) access.
ABOUT NIELSEN GRACENOTE ANALYTICS
Gracenote is the content data business unit of Nielsen, providing entertainment metadata, content IDs and related offerings to the world’s leading creators, distributors and platforms. Gracenote has aggregated, normalized and enriched core program metadata covering 30M titles in 360 streaming catalogs in 35 languages and 60 countries. Gracenote technology enables advanced content navigation and discovery capabilities helping individuals to easily connect to the TV shows, movies, music and sports they love while delivering powerful content analytics making complex business decisions simpler. For more information, visit Gracenote.com.
