December 05, 2018- #SeeHer, the Association of National Advertisers’ influential movement for gender equality in advertising, marketing, and media, which includes more than 75 top marketers and 1,000-plus brands, is expanding its bias-busting research methodology, the Gender Equality Measure™ (GEM™), to other key countries around the world.

The ANA launched the #SeeHer movement in 2016 to improve the accurate portrayal of women and girls in advertising and media by 20 percent by 2020, the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote in the U.S. To track success, it created GEM™, a data-driven methodology that identifies unconscious gender bias. GEM™ provides measurement standards for ads/TV programming. The methodology was made open source for the marketing, media, and entertainment industries, and is used by marketers, researchers, agencies, and content creators throughout the advertising and media communities. Increasingly, GEM™ is being integrated into advertisers’ media strategy, implementation, and review criteria.

Since launch, almost 60,000 ads have been tested by ABX, ANA’s syndicated research partner for GEM™. To ensure the best context for ads, twice a year GEM™ scores are captured for Nielsen’s top programs and member-selected broadcast and cable shows.

The results are impressive:

  • Ads with positive GEM™ scores drive purchase intent by 26 percent among all consumers; 45 percent among women.
  • Ads with positive GEM™ scores increase brand reputation by 11 percent.
  • Ads that portray women accurately work better when paired with programming that also portrays women and girls realistically.

“A lot of companies talk about corporate social responsibility, but we look at it more like corporate social action,” said Fiona Carter, chief brand officer, AT&T. “As one of the largest advertisers in the country, we’re delivering advertisements that more accurately portray women and girls, have a 20% better GEM™ score than when we first started using it, and are proving that inclusion leads to better business results as measured by brand recall, improved reputation and stronger purchase intent.”

Building on the U.S. success, ANA CEO Bob Liodice announced that GEM™ testing will now expand to 13 global markets. New markets include Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

“We know how effective GEM™ is in increasing marketers’ ROI. With this expansion, ANA’s #SeeHer marketers, almost all of whom are trans-national, can use GEM™ to deliver gender-equal content in many countries. Importantly, the use of GEM™ is a foundational element of the ‘Society and Sustainability’ platform embraced by the newly formed Global CMO Growth Council,” said Liodice.

“Consumers expect brands and companies to do good for society and the planet, beyond the products and services we offer,” added Marc Pritchard, ANA chair and chief brand officer of Procter & Gamble. “When nine of ten consumers say they have a more-positive image of a company when it supports a social or environmental cause, it’s not optional. With GEM™, we have a useful tool to help us all use our voices in advertising and media to eliminate bias and promote gender equality.”

“More than 85 percent of purchase decisions are made by women, yet 55 percent of women don’t see themselves accurately portrayed in ads or media today. GEM™ methodology is simply too powerful to be limited to one international market, even the world’s largest,” concluded Shelley Zalis, research expert; #SeeHer co-founder, CEO, founder of #SeeHer partner, The Female Quotient.

About the #SeeHer Movement

Despite the strides made to accurately portray women and girls in media, an unconscious bias persists against women and girls in advertising, media, and programming. The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) launched the #SeeHer initiative in June 2016 in a partnership with The Female Quotient (TFQ) at the United State of Women. SeeHer’s mission is to increase the accurate portrayals of women and girls in media 20 percent by 2020, the 100th anniversary of women winning the right to vote in the U.S. The group developed a Gender Equality Measure (GEM™) to track progress and the marketing effect of removing unconscious bias from ads and programming. High GEM™ scores directly correlate to improved ROI. GEM™ won the 2017 ESOMAR Research Effectiveness Award. The methodology became the industry standard in the U.S., which led to a global rollout in 2018. For more information, visit www.SeeHer.com, and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

About the Association of National Advertisers (ANA)

The ANA (Association of National Advertisers) makes a difference for individuals, brands, and the industry by driving growth, advancing the interests of marketers, and promoting and protecting the well-being of the marketing community. Founded in 1910, the ANA provides leadership that advances marketing excellence and shapes the future of the industry. The ANA’s membership includes more than 1,700 companies with 25,000 brands that engage almost 150,000 industry professionals and collectively spend or support more than $400 billion in marketing and advertising annually. The membership is comprised of more than 1,000 client-side marketers and more than 700 marketing solutions provider members, which include leading marketing data science and technology suppliers, ad agencies, law firms, consultants, and vendors. Further enriching the ecosystem is the work of the nonprofit ANA Educational Foundation (AEF), which has the mission of enhancing the understanding of advertising and marketing within the academic and marketing communities.

Contacts

Association of National Advertisers
Patty Kerr, (310) 344-4487
pkerr-cw@ana.net