My views on how the adverts are gender specific

The first advert that I showed the children was the jungle pets advert. This one is aimed at girls and i say this as there were girls playing with the toys. The music in this advert was full of bells and was soft and flowing, with quite gentle music. The cuts were few, making the shot length longer. Dissolves were used and this is a common editing feature that is used in girls adverts. Going to what I read earlier, they said that girls were more likely to play with cute soft things than boys as they need something to 'mother' and boys need to lok mkore masculine so have harsh fighting toys.
The second advert was aimed at both audiences and this is because there are both sexes playing with the product and also as they use a mix of music, it goes from quick to slower to quick to slower. There are a lot of cuts in this advert but i assume this is to make it seem more exciting than to aim it more at a male audience.
The third advert was polly pocket pets and once again this is a product aimed at females. It was very similar to the first advert i showed them, but a little longer and with some animation. The animation just made it seem like it was aimed at girls more though as it was a doll -'Polly' and was dressed in pink, stereotypically a girls colour.
The fourth advert was aimed at girls and this was a very feminine advert. For starters from the reading that i did they said that girls are more likely to play with dolls as they can 'mother' them. Also the doll is all pink, stereotypically a girls colour. The music was gentle with a 'barbie' theme tune and also a female voice over. There were dissolves, and the camera movements were slow.
The fifth advert was a secret journal and this was a female product. At the age that this product is being aimed at they are all secretive about things, and they keep diaries with secrets in. This is then pink, and also at the end of the advert a boy comes in and trys to look at what she is writing in the diary. As it has an invisibility page she turned it on and he couldn't see what she had written, making the product seem 'cool'. This advert was surprisingly fast for a girls advert, but it still carried over the sense that it was aimed at females. There was a female actor and also a female voice over making it certain about who it was aimed at.
The sixth advert was aimed at boys being a ball. This is stereotypically a boys game - football, and the fact that there were boys playing with it showed this. The music had a fast beat to it, with some drums and also the boys were shouting about how good it was, 'wow this is so cool!' The cuts were fast making it seem more exciting and the camera work was jerky.
The seventh advert was aimed at boys again. In this advert you do not see anyone playing with the product but the voice over is a male voice, giving the impression that it is aimed at males. It is all to do with football so it is stereotypically aimed at boys and also it was a fast advert with lots of cuts, making it seem jumpy.

My opinions of how the adverts are gender specific are different to that of the childrens responses because they do not know about editing features and also as they atre so young their responses were simplistic, and each very similar to the last.

The results from asking the group of children about the adverts

I had a group of 6 children, 3 girls and 3 boys around the age of 7 to 8. I recorded them on a tape so that I could play back the conversation later in order to get down everything that was said.

• To start off with I played the jungle pets advert to them. After watching this advert I then asked them whether they thought the toy was for girls, boys or both and they all answered girls. When I asked them why they thought it was for girls only they all gave the same kinds of responses, just phrasing things differently, saying there were girls playing with it so it must be for girls, or only girls play with little cute, fluffy animals, 'its really girly'.
• The second advert that I showed them was the wii game 'Rayman Raving Rabbits'. once again I asked them who they thought it was for and then I asked them why they thought this. they all said that the game was for both, and they even said that it would be for the whole family too, not just children. When I asked why they came up with the same kind of answer as they did for the first advert, saying that there were boys and girls playing with it so it must be for everyone, not just one group. They also said with this one that the music was funny, 'rabbit rabbit rabbit rabbit' was repeated through the advert, and so they said it was appealing to everyone because it wasn't using musical elements such as drums, which are in boys adverts, or 'tings' which are in girls adverts.
• The third advert i showed them was 'polly pocket pets' and they said that this toy was for girls only, because of the same reasons as the first advert that I showed them.
• The fourth advert was the Barbie fairy doll and they said that this was for girls only as boys dont play with fairys because it is a 'girly' toy, it was pink and glittery and they said that these things appeal more to girls, as boys think they make them look silly. When I asked them why they thought it was for girls from looking at aspects in the advert they all said that there were girls playing with the dolls and also the colour scheme was typicaly girly, as was the music with little bells and 'tingling noises' as one child put it.

At this point the children were getting bored and very noisy, which I had expected them to get like. The room in which i was showing them the adverts was small and cramped as it was the only one available, they were moving about swaping seats and kicking and biting eachother. I had tried to make it more fun for them by allowing them to hold the microphone when they had something to say about the adverts but this went badly around this stage as they kept turning ity on and off. The other equipment that i was using was being fiddled with also. The tape recorder was being paused continously and the laptop on which I was showing them the adverts was shut countless times as they found this funny. Of the 6 children there were only two children that were more sensible than the others, and one of these had to go half way through as they had a head ache, as the group was being so loud. I had tried to make them behave a bit more by telling them i had bought them some sweets which they could have at the end if they were good, but they just ignored this and got worse as the session went on. A teacher kept poking her head round the door to make sure that everything was ok and going well and as soon as they saw the teacher they would all behave, but then when she left they would carry on as though she had not been there. So at this point I only had 5 children, 3 boys and 2 girls.

• The fifth advert that I showed them was the password journal. I had planned to show them different ones but as they were getting out of hand I could not control them for much longer. So I showed them an advert which i thought would give them something more to talk about than the others. They said that this advert was for girls only and they said that this was because there was a girl playing with it. I then said what was the boy doing in this advert then, what was his purpose, and they said that he was there to show the girls toy was cool and that he could not see it because it was for girls only. As he was sneaking up on the girl in the advert they said that he wanted to see what the toy was and taht he couldnt because it was a girls only toy. I asked them to elaborate in why they thought it was a girls only toy and they said that it was pink, which is a girls colour, and also that the music once more was 'girly'.
• The sixth advert i showed them was the cosmic ball and they all said that it was a boys toy except for one. One boy said that it was both as anyone can play with a ball. I then asked hikm why he thought this in relation to the advert and he said that the advert was wrong as it only showed boys playing with the ball. I asked the others why they thought that the advert was aimed at boys and they said that boys were in the advert and also boys like playing with balls anyway (which stereotypes boys who play football) This created a mini argument in the group as they then started shouting about why girls wouldnt play with the ball, it was interesting that it was a boy that thought it could be for both though.
• The last advert that i managed to show them before they started to get too out of hand that i couldny control them any longer was a football sticker book, 'Euro 2008'. With this advert one girl and one boy thought that it could be for either sex, and when i asked them why they thought this they said that even though it was a male speaking you didn't see them playing with the book so it could be for either really. The rest of the children all said that it was for boys only and they said this because it was a male speaking and also because football isnt something that girls play so girls wouldnt want it anyway.

From this session with the children i have found out that they see the adverts and automatically think that whoever is advertising the product (male, female or both) is who the product is aimed at. Also I noticed that they are stereotyped into believing certain things, so at the age of 7-8 they have already been influenced by society into believing such stereotypes, like footbll is for boys and pink is for girls. There were a few children that thought they were aimed at people in a diferent way, by relying on their own opinions, instead of looking at how the advert is showing who the product is aimed at. Also they did not take into account things such as amount of shots, or how fast it was, editing features were unknown to them so they did not recognise some things as being gender specific in the adverts unlike older children would, or children from a better background.

Chosen adverts to look at with the group of children

I am going to look at 15 adverts with the children, 5 girls, 5 boys and 5 for both. The adverts I have chosen under the girls category are:

• Jungle pets
• Polly Pocket pets
• Barbie fairy
• Password journal
• Fifi kettle cottage

The boys adverts i am going to look at with the children are:

• Euro 2008 sticker book
• Transformers
• Pokemon balls
• Racing car
• Pokemon screen game

The adverts that i am going to look at that appeal to both audiences are:

• Wii - Rayman Raving Rabbits
• 20 Questions ball
• Cosmic Catch ball
• Fisher Price camera
• Trampoline

When talking about the adverts with the children I am going to ask them two major questions, firstly whether thay think the advert is for boys, girls or both, and then why they think that. I am going to give them some examples of what i am looking for in their responses to help them start off with why they think the adverts are aimed at that specific audience.

4 hours of childrens television - quick study

In the 4 hours of childrens television that i have recoreded there was a total of 120 adverts. 66 of these adverts were childrens toy adverts, 24 other ads were also aimed at children and the rest were nothing to do with children. Looking at the adverts there were 17 toy adverts that were repeated through out the space of four hours, meaning the children were viewing some adverts more than once, therefore allowing the adverts to have a greater chance of impact. 46 of these adverts were aimed at girls, 10 were for both and 10 were aimed at boys.The adverts that were aimed at girls all contained girl actors playing with the toys, therefore giving off the impression that they were for girls only. The same was noticed for boys, they were all shown with boy actors. In the both category the actors were of both sex, therefore making the impression that they are aimed at both sexes.

recording from CITV

Next I am going to record a few hours of the CITV channel to look at the adverts that are here as part of my own primary research. These adverts will then be used when i ask a group of children some quesetions about them, to see if the adverts have gender stereotypes and also if there are certain camera techniques that are in each that are defined as male or female.
The age group that i ask will be around seven to eight years old, with roughly 6 children, 3 girls and 3 boys. I will go the local first school and ask there if i can have an audience with a few children so that i can question them about the adverts that i pick out from the four hours of taping from the CITV channel.

reading from ABER site

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/lmg9307.html this is the link that i looked at

There are lots of theorists in this link. *Smith says that children get influenced about sex roles from their family, peers and the media, and also says that they learn the appropriate sex roles by observing the actions of others and being rewarded or punished for behaving in the correct, incorrect way. It has also been observed by *Bandura that children acquire the paterns of behaviour when there is an attractive model whose behaviour is rewarded. *Schneider shows a statistic that children between the age of 2 and 11 are exposed to approximately 150 to 200 hours of television advertising a year. He aslo says that boys reinforce one another through playing with action figures with the chance to be aggressive and win in competitive games, whilst girls have fun playing with dolls, with the opportunity to be loved and cuddled. *Macklin and Kolbe say that children are attracted to adverts with attractive models as they have a commanding, impressive influence over the environments. *Courtney and Whipple say that children are more likely to imitate behaviour by the same sex models, than opposite sex models. *Smith says that childrens advertisements basically show them how to behave, eventually accepting witout question the assumed images are 'real'. He also looked at children when they played with their toys in different groups. In all the same sex group the child, boy or girl, was seen to play with only the toys that are regarded as male or female. So males would play with male toys and vice versa. However in mixed sex groups, the boys only played with male toys whereas girls were not bothered what they played with. *O'Kelly viewed 7 hours of childrens television programmes and found that 67% had male characters. *Doolittle and Pepper watched a mornings worth of childrens adverts and found that 87% were shown with a male model, the adverts that were showing toys for girls only used female models. *Welch studied adverts and found that aggression was limited to the adverts aimed at boys. *Courtney and Whipple found that adverts aimed at women were shown in the home or in traditional stereotypical place, such as the kitchen.

reading from ABER site.

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/lmg9312.html this is the link that i looked at.
This review showed that boys reacted well to male role models but rejected female models. Girls however responded well to both, but better to the women. This shows that the girls aged between 7 and 11 express preference for males products and male gender typed behaviour. Girls between the age of 4 and 7 responded better to the all female address. For boys the female role models were totally rejected. This shows that girls have a greater tendancy to get involved in cross gender behaviour than boys. As the children grow older however the allegiance towards their own gender becomes socially more important.
In another case it looks at whether certain camera angles are more appropriate for a certain gender, looking at children between the age of 1-6. This was looking at whether one style was more appropriate for one sex than the other. The theory is that children are able to uise these subtle cues in advertisements in order to make gender appropriateness judgements.
They also looked at whether the gender of the advertiser or the voice over in the adverts affected how the child evaluated the product. When this was tesetd they foun out that boys thought if there was a women talking then the product was for both sexes, but if it was a male talking then the product was for boys only. With the girls however they were more open minded and believed both to be aimed at girls and boys.