Exploring Gender Stereotyping Across Ages in Advertising: Case study Huggies
Gender stereotypes in advertising are prevalent throughout all age groups. These cultural and societal generalisations and categorisations are exploited by numerous advertisers. Judith Butler examined the abject performativity of gender in western domestic settings, stating it to be ‘culturally constructed’ within a ‘masculinist culture’, believing gender, and thus its accompaniments, are ‘neither true nor false’ (Butler, 1999). Hence the media, which prolongs and portrays gender as confines of performative permanence, injects messages (Lasswell, 1927) through the normalisation and repetition of visual and audible, semiotic themes.
Huggies substantiated this in 2012 with the release of their infamous diaper and baby wipe campaign, ‘The Dad Test’ (D’Arcy, 2012). This played on the cultural, western ideoscape (Appadurai, 1990) of gender, stereotyping fathers as incompetent. Scapes are globalised flows; the flow of ideas, cultivating cultural meaning to form localised semantic codes, which through cultural imperialism (Mattelart, 1976), becomes globalised. For example: the famous fizz of an opened can of Coca-Cola, made renowned by David Agency’s campaign ‘Try not to hear this’ (David Agency, 2019). The simple semantic image of a freshly opened, fizzing can, evokes the internalised diegetic sound of the hiss through ‘synaesthesia’ (ibid). Huggies’ disastrous, dad damning campaign, framing of five dads as the ‘toughest test imaginable’… ‘prov[ing] Huggies… wipes can… handle anything.’ (Belkin, 2012) unsurprisingly backfired.
Huggies’ campaign allowed their consumer mothers to nominate five fathers and five babies online, to survive for five days in one house, televised, with no mums allowed. Throughout this, the babies are shown being impossibly messy, covering themselves and the house in spaghetti and muck. A non-diegetic woman’s voice narrates the scenes and explains the draconian situation, whilst a mother wishes the fathers “Good Luck” as the dads look on, helpless. The emphasis placed on the mothers being unavailable to supervise is insipidly heart-breaking, insinuating it is not simply the fault of bad parenting causing the mess, but instead the very concept that the mother is absent. As the fathers struggle to control these bombastic babies, Huggies diapers and wipes are unleashed, saving the day. In this twisted ideal of hegemony (Gramsci, 1975) Huggies are now seen in the seat of power, an opinion leader, parading with the pretence of a saviour. Not only portraying fathers as inadequate without this life-saving product, but in Huggies’ view: Huggies are replacing the mum. This sparked outrage at the dismissal of a well-established contemporary gender role of fatherhood. Instead of working with their consumer, Huggies looked to take on their ‘cultural roles’ (Butler, 1999).
Reactions to this abominable abrasion of fatherhood were severe. A rally of over two hundred dad bloggers, gathered at the convention Dad 2.0 in Austin, protesting about the new campaign. The rally sparked a world-wide conversation, surrounding the subjugation and mockery of fatherhood in contemporary society, with over one thousand three hundred signatories on the ‘We’re Dads, Huggies. Not Dummies petition’ (Routley, 2012) that reiterated ‘no aspect of parenting… is off-limits to involved 21st Century dads’ (ibid). Representatives of Huggies were sent to the convention, to apologise to the fathers. Huggies claimed there was no intention of offense, that they were attempting to follow an early 2010s trend in which fathers were depicted being involved with childcare — such as Clorox’s 2011 ad, ‘Bleachable Moments’ (Clorox, 2011), ‘Bleachable Moments’ shows two dad’s, competently holding their babies and chatting in a playground, like all normal parents. Due to their consumer market being made up of 75% women, Huggies stated they created an advert in solidarity, giving mums something to laugh about. Huggies were neglecting the growing trend of men taking up the role of child carer. In the US in 2012 there were over two million stay at home dads (Onley, 2017) and two point three million single fathers (Castillo, 2023). 2019 saw a rise to 9% of US companies offering paid paternity leave (Gurchiek, 2019). Huggies did not innovate, they antiquated themselves to a time of social complacency when their consumer was simply passive and unengaged in social and institutional action. Huggies’ ultimate response was to remove a single advert, depicting fathers neglecting their uncomfortable babies, as they watched and enjoyed a game of football on T.V.. Huggies had taken their eye off the ball. This apparent incomprehension of the instigating issue displays the endemic nature of cultural stereotypes. Their perpetuation risks alienating and offending customers; companies and leaders would benefit from its desertion.
However, it could be considered unfair to place the whole blame of this horrific typification and circulation of performative roles, on Huggies. Cultural economy dictates. The domination of ideology pertaining to an individual’s assigned role is recirculated, flooding culture and media and thereby seeps into society. Pratt argues that ‘Cultural economics [as]… positive economics to a public good… has failed’ (Pratt, 2020). Despite perceptions of cultural economics’ renowned and orthodox nature, he believes there is need for a ‘more heterodox future’ (ibid). Where creative economies have flourished, cultural economic circulations of gender roles frequently lag behind and are outdated. This inclination of directional deviation by contemporary society towards heterodoxy overtly pronounces and confirms Huggies’ failure in their caricatured crusade. Flows in media and advertising, pertain to the flow of information and persuasive communication from an advertiser to a consumer and vice versa (Frenzen et al, 1993), revealing its impact on consumer behaviour, looking towards a marketing ‘outcome’. Instead of looking at data and following the established path of a trend, Huggies spinelessly looked to old trends, attempting the combination of the dad fad, with the mocking humour of the past. In this sense, it is Huggies’ own misinformation that puts them in fault, corralled and deluded by invested, antiquated attitudes.
Huggies’ ultimate desired marketing outcome, was to charm their majority female consumer base, telling them to gawk and laugh at the incapability of fathers doing a ‘mother’s’ job. Of course, this neglect and obvious lack of insight into consumer behaviour was their downfall. Whilst appreciating the flow of information to their consumers, Huggies overlooked the flow of information, coming back from their consumers. This caused a mass uprising, spread through ‘word-of-mouth’ (Frenzen et al, 1993), exponentially growing into a formal rally and a viral online petition.
Ultimately, it is strongly advised for companies to strive in its public spotlight, to remain and uphold values of relevance and social acuity. Public and social values of previous decades will not and do not represent those in stride with current cultural perspectives. A lack of willingness and maturity to attain and appreciate contemporary values is unacceptable. Huggies were opportunistic in their attempt at staying with the times, refusing to add value to the opening conversation and their community. Instead of making themselves essential to the pressing issue, they divulged to mock it, viewing it from the perspective of spectator, parodying where they should have indulged. Huggies proved themselves to be a backward-looking, ephemeral brand, uninvested in their customer community. Their callousness is evidenced by them removing only one deplorable advert, instead of apologising and thereby creating a new, enduring avenue of social and cultural commitment.
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