Advertisers need to think twice before conforming to 'thin ideal'

25-May-2015 - Last updated on 26-May-2015 at 10:11 GMT

The objectification of women and unrealistic images in advertising has long been a problem and serves to alienate people, but new research says that thin models in advertising may not attract or influence women to buy products.

A study carried out by Baylor University says that not all women will buy products because the models in the advertisements are thin, and Professor James Roberts says that marketers and advertisers who default to the ‘thin ideal’ – the belief that thinner is better – could be alienating up to 70% of their audience.

Roberts co-authored the report, ‘Does Thin Always Sell? The Moderating Role of Thin Ideal Internalization on Advertising Effectiveness,’ with his daughter, Chloe, published by the Atlantic Marketing Journal.

The report says that the current ‘thin sells’ fixation is a gross oversimplification of how women respond to advertising, and that previous research has shown that only 5% of women could possibly achieve the body size depicted in typical advertisements.

Marketing professor James Roberts says that advertisers tend to default to this ideal without knowing for sure if other options are viable.

“Advertisers need to do a bit more research with their target market. They need to find out what these women are thinking, as related to body size,” he says.

A recent example of how advertisers got it wrong and the backlash they faced as a result, was supplement firm Protein World’s ‘beach body’ campaign in the UK which saw its ads slammed, defaced, and petitions signed for their removal, over anger at the image of a thin model used as a representation of being ‘beach body ready’.

Study

In this most recent study, using a diverse group of 239 women, the researchers determined which of the women surveyed internalized the ‘thin ideal’, by asking a series of eight questions to see whether she fell into the low or high internalization category.

“It was our belief that women who ascribed to the ‘thin ideal’ would be more receptive to the thinner models,” James Roberts explains.

Following that identification, each woman was then asked to respond to a series of magazine advertising photos featuring women modelling with purses.

Half of the photos were altered to increase the body sizes of the models. Attitudes toward the ad and brand were both measured, as was the likelihood of purchasing the product.

“For those who did not ascribe to the thin ideal, model size did not play a part in ad effectiveness,” James Roberts continues.

Results

That number was significant, he said. Of those surveyed, 25% disagreed with the ‘thin ideal’ and 45% did not fully ascribe to it.

On the flip side, 30% of the women internalized the ‘thin ideal’, and were found to be “more receptive to thin models compared to average-size models”, according to the study.

James Roberts said this study puts actual numbers to beliefs that have existed for a while, but he said the research findings should be enough to give advertisers pause before they cast their next models.

“We don’t want to oversimplify. We need to look at the target market, and we also have to look at the product category. For some product categories, ‘thin’ is probably going to do better,” he says.

“For others, it very well may be that an average-size model may sell better than a thin model. It just may be a good business decision.”