KEY POINTS:
New Zealand women believe they are inaccurately represented in ads and fear it could harm their careers, an online study has found.
The survey of 400 New Zealand women by Splash Consulting Group found 89 per cent of respondents felt the way women were represented in advertising and marketing harmed their ability to be taken seriously in the workplace.
Eighty-six per cent replied campaigns portrayed women as "unequal in society" and 79 per cent said "real women" were not used.
But industry heavyweight David Walden dubbed the findings "predictably anti-advertising". Ads tended to reflect the society in which they were shown.
"It's not our job to try and impose standards on society, it's not our job to try and give impressions of what is not there," said the Communications Agencies Association chairman and chief executive of ad agency TBWA\ Whybin. "If you're advertising a household product and you want to have a person using the product, you would have to say it makes sense to use a woman - not many blokes are at home cleaning the toilet."
Splash managing director Amanda Stevens said there was a "disconnect" between many advertisers and the female market.
"Women tell us 80 per cent of advertising just doesn't connect with them and yet they make 80 per cent of purchase decisions," she said. "Rather than engaging women, it's actually enraging them."
Burger King's "BK Girls" ads were inappropriate, while an ANZ bank campaign portraying women as multi-taskers "connected in a good way".
ADVERTS RESENTED
Of the 400 New Zealand women who answered an online survey:
* 94% say portrayal of women in advertising and marketing campaigns encourages the sexualisation of girls from a young age.
* 86% say advertising and marketing campaigns portray women as unequal in society.
* 81% say the way women are represented is cause for resentment.
* 79% say advertisers and marketers do not use real women in campaigns.
SOURCE: Splash Consulting Group
