MARKETING RESEARCH PROJECT

SEMESTER IV

TOPIC: ANALYSING ADVERTISEMENTS FOR CHANGING ROLE OF WOMEN

IN
INDIAN SOCIETY

MRS. MEENU CHOPRA

DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS STUDIES
DEEN DAYAL UPADHYAYA COLLEGE
UNIVERSITY OF DELHI

SUBMITTED BY:
MEGHNA KWATRA (0197)
TANISHA KALRA (0167)
CHAKSHU GUPTA (0193)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We would like to express our gratitude to our teacher Mrs. Meenu chopra for the
valuable guidance and advice throughout the course of this project. She inspired us
greatly to work on this project. Her willingness to motivate us contributed
tremendously to our project.
Besides, we would like to thank the administration of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College
for providing us with a good environment and facilities to complete this project.
Finally, an honorable mention goes to our families and friends for their understanding
and support.

CONTENT

S no.
1
2

3
4

Topic
List of tables
Chi square and crosstabs
Executive summary
Major findings
Conclusion
Problem definition
background
Research design
type of research design
information required
data from secondary sources
data from primary sources
scaling techniques
sampling technique
Data analysis
methodology
plan of data analysis
Conclusion

Page no.

LIST OF TABLES
Chi square analysis table and cross tabs
Type and dress up
Type and culture
Type and dominance
Type and role

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
MAJOR FINDINGS

Analysis from 40 respondents related to the new advertisements, 65% women

wear western while only 20% wear indian dresses in the new ads.
From 30 respondents related to the old advertisements, 76.7% women wear
indian dresses while no woman wore formal dresses and only a few women
i.e., 10% were observed wearing modern dresses in the old advertisement.
The value of chi-square test is .000 which means that there is a significant
relationship between type of advertisement and dress-up since its value is
below 5%.

Of the 40 respondents pertaining to new advertisements, 87.5% of the ads

show modern culture while only 12.5% of the ads show traditional culture. Of
30 respondents pertaining to old advertisements, 70% of the ads show
traditional culture while only 30% ads show modern culture.
Since the value of chi-square is less than 5% i.e., .000, this implies that there is
a significant relationship between the type of ads and culture or at 100%
confidence level, types of ads and culture are

significantly associated with

each other .

Of 40 new advertisements, we can see that most ads, i.e., 65% are
female dominated, while 25% ads show equality among male and
female. While only 12.5% ads are male dominated.
Of 40 new advertisements, most ads portray recreational roles while few
ads use women to a portray a decorative role in the ads. Of the 30 old
ads, most ads use women as a decorative role i.e., 36.7% while no women
were portrayed in a professional role and 30% ads depicted the role of women
as homemaker.
Since the value of chi-square is .000 i.e., less than 5%, this means that there is
a significant relationship between type of ads and the role portrayed by women
in them.

CONCLUSIONS
From the analysis of the data, we have been able to infer that the role of women has
dramatically changed and it has been well depicted in advertisements that formed our
sample.
With the passage of time, indian womens role has metamorphosed from a domestic
manager to a prime purchaser.
Earlier, advertisements presented the following cliches about women's roles:
(1) a woman's place is in the home,
(2) women do not make important decisions,
(3) women are dependent and need men's protection, and
(4) men regard women primarily as sexual objects; they're not interested in women as
people.
But now advertisements have been able to depict the changed role of women as:
Decision maker
Prime purchaser
Professional
Independent.

PROBLEM DEFINITION
BACKGROUND
Traditionally, the role of wife and mother has been seen as a woman's destiny and her
only career choice. For years, she remained totally dependent on her husband
financially and chose to remain unaware of the world outside her home. It was the
man who was the consumer for the whole family and thus a target for marketers.
However, in the last 40 years, the rapid strides in education and employment have
paved the way for drastic changes in the status of women-the latter have become selfreliant and also share enhanced emotional bonds with their husbands. From the
woman confined to the domestic sphere to the liberated woman of the 21st century,
from the woman totally dependent on a man to the totally independent career woman
of today, women have made their way through and have evolved as individuals in
their own right. And as far as the notion of consumers is concerned, women have
become the target market for products and services in India.
The status of women in India has raised many a controversy and headed many a
movement. With the passage of time, the Indian woman's role has metamorphosed
from a domestic manager to a prime purchaser.
Through our marketing research project, we have tried to the best of our abilities to
study and analyse the changing role of women in advertising in India.
For our project, we have studied the trends of women in advertising in the past (1980s
to 2000s) to the modern times (2010 onwards).
We have studied the magazine, newspaper, television, etc mediums of advertising,
observing the advertisements of various past and present brands.
Doing a comparative study on some common factors on advertisements in both these
time periods have provided us with great knowledge about the actual changing trends
in the role of women in Indian society.
Advertising seems to be obsessed with gender and sexuality and continues to
represent an arena in which gender display plays a major role. It has emerged as a
world of 'commercial realism' in which we are given 'realistic' images of domestic life
and male-female relationships which are not actually real but which provide us with a
'stimulated slice of life'.
In turn, advertising provides an ideal place to examine the encoding of cultural norms
and values in ritualised formats.

RESEARCH DESIGN
TYPE OF RESEARCH DESIGN
Exploratory research design
Qualitative research method
Secondary data analysis in a qualitative way
INFORMATION REQUIRED

What was the role of women in advertisement before 2000?

What was the role of women in advertisement after 2000?
What was the culture prevailing in the society during these period?
What was the status of the women depicted in those advertisements?
How was the society depicted patriarchal or matriarchal?
What was the attire of the women in those advertisements?
What was the change in trends observed during our periods of observation?
Did the role of women in households change dramatically during these two
periods?

DATA FROM SECONDARY SOURCES

Sunaina Dhingras article on female role portrayals in womens magazine.

Changing Role of Women in Indian Cinema
October 30, 2009 Neelam Singh Culture Today3
A comparative study on gender displays in US and Indian advertisements by
Griffin et al (1994).
Changing depiction of women in Indian advertising by Santosh Desai
Remember the old Harpic ad when mother-in-law comes a-visiting and checks
out the toilet bowl while the housewifes heart thuds loudly in our ears? On
that occasion, she passes muster thanks to her savior, the toilet cleaner, but in
many ways, the pre-liberalization housewifes life was a series of such
anxieties. Advertising works by quickening the pulse of desire and making a
better world seem a visit to the market away. However, in the world of the
housewife then, desire was a noticeable absentee.
The housewifes role was one more in the womans unending list of roles
each with a job description and a rigid set of rules.
Being a housewife meant catering to the diverse needs, desires, expectations
and whims of her family without thinking about her own self. The housewife

woke up first and ate last, slaved through the day, and described herself as not
working. The home was hostile terrain full of pitfalls, economic, cultural and
political. She managed with grit and sly manoeuvre to prise open small
gaps between tight circumstances, using subterfuge, manipulation and subtle
gesture.
The role of products was to help her in this battle against the world.
Advertising offered to assist her in her struggles while slyly reinforcing the
roles, pushing her to do more and more in the name of being a good
housewife. The detergent was the archetypal product, representing the battle
to erase the griminess the world imposed on her family, day by sweaty day.
She laboured under Harpic fear, lived in Rin drudgery, escaped poignantly into
the un-attainability of Liril fantasy. Her victories were hard-fought, as
evidenced by the persona of Lalitaji, arguably Indian advertisings most
memorable character. Lalitaji lived in a world where men asked all the
questions and every action by a woman needed explaining. Her preferred
mode of response was aggressive; she gave as good as she got, but in doing so,
she became a charm-less automaton.
Things changed with liberalisation, affluence easing the tightness constricting
middle-class India. Aided by womens improved education, the role of the
housewife began changing discernibly. The martinet of Surf became playful
manager of household circumstances as she teasingly challenged us with
Dhoondte Reh Jaaoge to find any dirt on her familys clothing. Through the
early 1990s, the housewife gradually found greater self-confidence, the motif
of fear slowly receding from most advertising depictions. In the case of a
cooking masala, which earlier showed a young housewife terrified about
making a mistake while cooking, a new version depicted a young Mandira
Bedi pretending to listen to her mother-in-law tell her about spices while
actually listening to a Walkman. Modernity was now a wink exchanged
between the woman and the brand, with the audience eavesdropping.
Today, the housewife is rarely shown with a frown on her face. In fact, she is
rarely shown at all. What we see instead is a highly confident homemaker who
hovers above her roles. She is an enthusiastic cheerleader for her family, one
who says yes much more often than no, one who grants wishes while
showering attention on her kin. Her children are her key projects, her husband,
just one more child to be managed rather than obeyed. The mother-in-law is
rarely present; when she does appear, it is as a distant, benign installation. It is
almost as if the home is no longer the primary arena for the woman. The new
frontier is the outside world and the new battlefield is the womans body. Her
confidence at home stands in stark contrast to her anxieties outside, where her
body is seen as a traitor intent on giving her away. Many products, particularly
those involving grooming, have moved away from showing the home as a
context anymore. The housewife has been exteriorised; her internal sense of
self is now located in the outside world and found wanting. In that sense, in
the last 30 years, everything has changed, yet nothing has. The anxieties have
changed labels, but the womans heart still thuds in our ears.

The Sex Roles study drew similarities and differences in the way women and
men are portrayed in Indian magazine ads and the way they are portrayed in
other countries.
The similarities, according to the study, largely borne out by fact seem to be
that
(1) overall, men and women in Indian ads are also portrayed in stereotypical
ways;
(2) the stereotypes in India also seem to be changing and softening, albeit
slowly;
(3) as in the case of western ads, women and men appear for different types of
products in Indian ads; and
(4) role portrayals seem to be affected by the nature of the product in the case
of women, as in other nations.
Two major differences in female role portrayals were noted:
1. Some of the common stereotypical portrayals seem less prevalent in Indian
ads. For example, unlike in British magazine ads, women in Indian magazine
ads were more likely to be portrayed in "neutral/other" ways and less likely to
be portrayed as sex objects. Women modelling for mobile phones, cars and
two-wheelers, painkillers, and as protagonists carry neutral portrayals. Women
were also less likely to be portrayed in "dependency" roles in Indian ads than
in British ads. It is noteworthy that these results are similar to those found in
two other Asian countries--Korea and Japan--where, again, females were less
likely to be portrayed in very negative stereotypical ways than in western
nations. As mentioned earlier, the religious and cultural differences between
India and western nations may account for this finding.
2. The polarizing trend found in the West, i.e., a tendency to portray women in
dependency and housewife roles and in nontraditional activities, careeroriented, and authority figure roles (in British magazine ads), was not found
for India by Das' study. 'Polarizing' means strong opposites where one woman
is shown driving all alone in a car with an expression of confidence on her
face juxtaposed against the image of a woman sensually posing for a cosmetic
product or spouting forth the advantages of a health drink for children. In
India, the trend seems to be to portray women less often as housewives or
concerned with looks, but not more often in nontraditional, career-oriented, or
authority figure roles. Instead, there seems to be an increase in neutral
portrayals of women, due, in part, to the dramatic increase in the number of
ads for such products.

DATA FROM PRIMARY SOURCEs

SPSS analysis of data collected through various secondary sources stated
above.

SCALING TECHNIQUE
Nominal scale

DATA ANALYSIS
METHODOLOGY
Randomly selected advertisements of various brands before and after 2000.
PLAN OF DATA ANALYSIS
We have used chi-square test using the SPSS software.
NO of companies taken for new advertisement-40
No of companies taken for old avdertisement-30
Codes are as follows
TYPE:
1-NEW
2-OLD
DRESSUP:
0-NO WOMEN
1-INDIAN
2-WESTERN
3-FORMAL
CULTURE:
1-MODERN
2-TRADITIONAL
ROLE:0-NO WOMAN
1-RECREATIONAL
2-DECORATIVE
3-DECISION MAKER
4-PROFESSIONAL
5-HOME MAKER

Type * dressup

Crosstab
dressup
Type

New
old

Total

No woman Indian

western

formal

Total

26

40

% within Type .0%

20.0%

65.0%

15.0%

100.0%

Count

23

30

% within Type 13.3%

76.7%

10.0%

.0%

100.0%

Count

31

29

70

44.3%

41.4%

8.6%

100.0%

Count

4
4

% within Type 5.7%

ANALYSIS-FROM

40

RESPONDENTS

RELATED

TO

THE

NEW

ADVERTISEMENT 65% WOMEN WEAR WESTERN WHILE ONLY 20%

WOMEN WEAR INDIAN DRESSES IN THE NEW ADVERTISEMENT.

FROM 30 RESPONDENTS RELATED TO THE OLD ADVERTISEMENT76.7%

WOMEN WEAR INDIAN DRESSES WHILE NO WOMEN WEAR FORMAL
DRESSES AND ONLY FEW WOMEN THAT IS 10% WEAR MODERN DRESSES
IN THE OLD ADVERTISEMENT.
Chi-Square Tests
Value

df

Asymp. Sig. (2sided)

Pearson Chi-Square

34.781a

.000

Likelihood Ratio

40.913

.000

Linear-by-Linear
Association

30.547

.000

N of Valid Cases

70

a. 4 cells (50.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum

expected count is 1.71.

THE VALUE OF THE CHI-SQUARE TEST IS .000 WHICH MEANS THAT

THERE IS A SIGNIFICANT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TYPE OF
ADVERTISEMENT AND DRESSUP SINCE ITS VALUE IS BELOW 5%

Type * culture

Crosstab
culture
Type

New
old

Total

modern

traditional

Total

35

40

% within Type 87.5%

12.5%

100.0%

Count

21

30

% within Type 30.0%

70.0%

100.0%

Count

26

70

37.1%

100.0%

Count

9
44

% within Type 62.9%

OF 40 RESPONDENTS PERTAINING TO NEW ADVERTISEMENT 87.5% OF

THE ADS SHOWS MODERN CULTURE WHILE ONLY 12.5% OF THE ADS
SHOWS TRADTIONAL CULTURE
OF 30 RESPONDENTS PERTAINING TO OLD ADVERTISEMENT 70% OF THE
ADS SHOWS TRADITIONAL CULTURE WHILE ONLY 30% ADS SHOWS
MODERN CULTURE

Chi-Square Tests

Pearson Chi-Square
Continuity Correction
Likelihood Ratio

Value

df

Asymp. Sig. (2- Exact Sig. (2- Exact Sig. (1sided)

sided)
sided)

24.277a

.000

21.876

.000

25.566

.000

Fisher's Exact Test

.000

Linear-by-Linear
Association

23.930

N of Valid Cases

70

.000

.000

a. 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 11.14.
b. Computed only for a 2x2 table

SINCE THE VALUE OF THE CHI-SQUARE IS LESS THAN 5% THAT IS .000

THIS IMPLIES THAT THERE IS A SIGNIFICANT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
THE TYPE OF ADS AND CULTURE
OR AT 100% CONFIDENCE LEVEL TYPES OF ADS AND CULTURE ARE
SIGNIFICANTLY ASSOCIATED WIH EACH OTHER.

Type * Dominance

Crosstab
Dominance
Type

New
old

Total

male

female

equal

Total

25

10

40

% within Type 12.5%

62.5%

25.0%

100.0%

Count

15

30

% within Type 33.3%

50.0%

16.7%

100.0%

Count

40

15

70

57.1%

21.4%

100.0%

Count

10
15

% within Type 21.4%

OF 40 NEW ADVERTISEMENTS WE CAN SEE THAT MOST ADS THAT IS 65%

ARE FEMALE DOMINATED WHILE 25% ADS SHOW EQUALITY AMONG
MALE AND FEMALE
WHILE ONLY 12.5% ADS ARE MALE DOMINATED.
Crosstab
role
Recreation
decision
al
decorative maker

professiona home
l
maker

Count 0

14

40

%
.0%
within
Type

35.0%

10.0%

15.0%

22.5%

17.5%

100.0%

Count 4

11

30

%
13.3%
within
Type

6.7%

36.7%

13.3%

.0%

30.0%

100.0%

Count 4

16

15

10

16

70

%
5.7%
within
Type

22.9%

21.4%

14.3%

12.9%

22.9%

100.0%

no women
Type

New

old

Total

Total

Type * role

OF 40 NEW ADVERTISEMENT MOST ADVERTISEMENT PORTRAYS

RECREATION WHILE FEW ADS USE WOMEN TO PORTRAY AS A ROLE OF
DECORATIVE
OF 30 OLD ADS MOST ADS USE WOMEN AS A ROLE OF DECORATIVE THAT
IS

36.7%

WHILE

NO

WOMEN

WERE

PORTRAYED

AS

A ROLE

PROFESSIONAL AND 30% ADS DEPICTED THE ROLE OF HOMEMAKER

Chi-Square Tests
Value

df

Asymp. Sig. (2sided)

Pearson Chi-Square

24.998a

.000

Likelihood Ratio

30.763

.000

Linear-by-Linear
Association

.036

.849

N of Valid Cases

70

a. 4 cells (33.3%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum

expected count is 1.71.
SINCE THE VALUE OF CHI-SQUARE IS .00 THST IS LESS THAN 5% THIS
MEANS THERE IS A SIGNIFICANT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TYPE OF ADS
AND THE ROLE THE ADS PORTRAY.

COMPARATIVE: PAST AND PRESENT

Health drinks

Health drinks initially catered to children, their health requirements. How mothers
made sure that their children have complan, horlicks or bournvita as a part of their
diet.But lately many brands have realised that women no longer is just has a role of
care taker but someone who has to take care of both work at office as well as of the
family. Her health needs special attention and care too. A healthy lady in the house
acts as a source of energy for the whole family, so her health cant be afford not to be
taken care of.

Footwear

Bata has been a brand manufacturing shoes for generations. Still considered to be a
brand trusted by the elders of the family. The previously launched bouncer shoes, that
had features of extra sponge and durability for young boys. Young boys where
targeted as they used to go out and play but the new advertisements have brought
atotally different picture. It portrays a girl claiming its my life. She needs stylish
shoes and according to her taste.

Two wheelers

Two wheelers are generally associated with men riding them primarily. A scooter is
generally a family mans ride while a bike is for a free spirited teenager. But presently,
a no. of brands such as Honda, Mahindra, TVS has entered the market offering wide
range of varieties keeping in mind comfort and designs according to the choice of the
girls. They have their punch lines such as why should boys have all the fun, go
babelicious watch out for pink etc, giving a clear message to the world that girls are
out and they are not dependent on anyone else to their rides.

Detergents

Washing clothes has always been a task associated with women. Previous surf
advertisements showed that an ideal housewife who perform all the household
chores prefer washing powders. But even detergent powders have become wash
friendly, in terms of the fact that a woman these days doesnt have time to was tough
stains, so they have come up with variants such as quick stain remover, fabric
brighter, softener, with various fragrances and what not. Even though women who
wash clothes at home wants to have a fun while washing the clothes and not consider
it as a tedious and monotonous task.

LIMITATIONS
Since the research methodology undertaken is qualitative in nature, therefore, there
have been certain limitations faced.
These are:
Small sample size
Subjective approach
No pre defined criterias
Time consuming
Difficult to conclude results in a quantitative manner.
Non representative
Unstructured
Requires further statistical analysis.

CONCLUSION
Urban India is slowly transforming into a western society. The West, through the
various media, is increasingly influencing this sector of the Indian economy,
especially in terms of its fashion-and nowhere is this trend more prominent than in
Indian women's fashion magazines. This shows that even though Indian
advertisements have Indian models with traditional dresses, they are being
increasingly replaced with models in western outfits or have other western aspects to
them. It is only in the last 20 years that India has opened up to western culture. With
the advent of privatisation and the liberalisation of the economy, India has seen a
surge of multinationals invade her consumer market. And the new revolution in
advertising is also a true revelation of the changed consumer scenario.
The presence of an increasing number of women's magazines, as well as advertising
in these magazines portraying the different roles of women, clearly reveal the
changing perception of women in today's society. As marketers, unlike before, are
investing large sums of money and time, investigating and collecting data solely on
women's psychographics-attitudes, habits, preferences-to meet their needs and wants,
it is obvious that women today are no longer cocooned in their traditions but have
imbibed western culture to their convenience. This osmosis of traditional culture with
western culture not only reflects the metamorphosis of women in society but also
reveals the new Indian market-a revolutionised consumer marketplace.

EXHIBITS
SOME OLD ADS OBSERVED

NEW ADS OBSERVED UNDER THIS PROJECT

THANK YOU