| Summary: | Today, we are surrounded by stereotypical representations of gender in advertising. We have chosen to focus on the question: What can the use of gender stereotypes result in and what are the motives for companies not to use gender stereotypes in advertising? The aim is to discuss how and why companies use gender stereotypes in their advertising and what the consequences are. We have chosen to target the sports industry as the sports movement is created by men, for men and is still characterized by male norms and power structures. It is therefore interesting to examine how sports companies in Sweden convey their view of gender through its marketing and more specifically their commercials. We have used focus groups to learn the consumers thoughts about three different commercials by Intersport, XXL Sport & Vildmark and Stadium (three big sports companies with business in Sweden). We have used Kotler’s basic theories of marketing with a focus on needs, wants, demand and segmentation. We have also focused on brand theory as a corporate brand is now one of the biggest intangible assets a company owns and it is increasingly important for companies to have a strong brand to differentiate themselves in today's fierce competition. We have also used theories about gender and sports to see patterns that cannot be recognized using only marketing theory.Based on the discussions of the focus groups, gender stereotyping in advertising and advertising focused on appearance resulted in negative feelings which created no sense of belonging (one of the basic human needs according to Kotler) and was considered exclusionary.
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