Over the past decade, multiple brands have been accused of sexism as they offered products that seemed unnecessarily gendered: from BIC with 'BIC for her', a line of pens just for women, to Kleenex with its 'Mansize' tissues. Consumers were outraged by this announcement, accusing Doritos of sexism. To better understand this phenomenon, I investigated how consumers respond to gendered products, focusing on whether they view the brands behind those gendered products as sexist.
To start my investigation, I conducted an experiment in which I told participants that SodaCola — a fictive brand — announced they would launch a low-calorie soda. Half of the participants were told that this new soda would be called 'LadySodaCola' and have pink packaging. The other half were told it would be called 'Diet SodaCola' and have yellow packaging. I then asked participants how sexist they perceived SodaCola to be and how likely they were to share information about it through word-of-mouth.
As I predicted, participants informed about 'Lady SodaCola' a gendered product viewed the brand as more sexist than participants informed about 'Diet SodaCola' a non-gendered product , and they were more willing to spread negative word-of-mouth about it.
Besides, launching a low-calorie soda named 'Lady SodaCola' was perceived as a less legitimate practice than launching a low-calorie soda named 'Diet SodaCola'. In sum, these results confirmed that consumers respond adversely to a gendered product. I also predicted that two personal characteristics could modify how consumers respond to gendered products: if they are feminist and if they endorse sexist beliefs.
I found this was indeed the case. Consumers who identify as feminist are more inclined to view brands behind gendered products as sexist. Conversely, consumers who endorse sexist beliefs are less prone to view brands behind gendered products as sexist.
