Why Are Boy Centered Television Commercials More Prominent Than Girls?

If you are a parent and have a child that watches television regularly, you may be aware of the predominance of boy centered advertising that appears during television commercial breaks. Why is it that television commercials lean toward the boy demographic more than the girls?

I did a simple evaluation of commercial sets that appeared on the television network Nickelodeon at a certain time of day during a SpongeBob SquarePants episode, and then I duplicated this evaluation the next day at the same time and during the same television show. Typically, in each set the commercials where mostly unisex; expressing ads for food, movies, clothes or CDs in which the advertisers want to be inclusive of both genders; they often times include animation. In viewing my notes it appears that all of the boy centered commercials have a formula which is only boys portrayed, deep announcer's voice, action packed, outside the home and dark colors. The girl centered commercials were radically different from the boys; these commercials displayed only girls, light/fun female or sometimes male voice, light colors, inside the home and usually singing.

Within these television commercial sets there was always one more boy centered commercial than girls. Furthermore, boy centered television commercials appeared to be more varied with none of the commercials being repeated in any of the sets. The girl centered television commercials on the other hand had less variety and did repeat within the given time period. The unisex centered commercials never repeated.

Some possible explanations are that there may be more boy centered products on the market than those geared toward girls, parents may be more likely to by a product for boys than for girls or maybe boy centered products are just generally more appealing and socially acceptable to either gender.

An article from The Wall Street Journal details these possible trends. In this piece the author, Joseph Pereira, describes how the toy markets create more of a variety in `boy' toys than `girl' toys. Pereira points out that those involved in the toy business can make more money marketing and making toys directed at boys, because boys typically receive more toys than girls. Additionally, he states that boys are more likely to keep on buying toys when girls have become disinterested. (Pereira, 1994) This lends credence as to why girl products are not represented in the same capacity as those geared toward boys on television commercials.

Do you think toy manufacturers and marketers are exhibiting bias in their television commercial advertising?

Pereira, Joseph. (1994, September 23). "Toys: Oh, boy. In Toyland, you get more if you're male". Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition), p. B1.