Throughout this project I've explored how societies perception of gender influences branding and consumer perception of brands. Initial research involved content analysis by looking at how brands are perceived by consumers by looking at brand personality traits, a set of traits associated with a brand by the consumer. This links to gender as brands tend to have specific associations with masculinity and femininity, these associations are important as by targeting certain traits such as masculinity and femininity a brand has greater chance as they can help target a certain group of people as ‘greater the congruity between human characteristics that consistently and distinctively describe an individuals actual or ideal self and those described by the brand, the greater the preference’ (Aaker, J 1997). However due to developments in gender roles society no longer classes masculine products as exclusively for men and vice versa, as masculinity and femininity exists in varying degrees within most individual according to Bem (1974). This lead to the exploration of brand who have changed their brand personality traits to reflect the change in gender roles within society. Nike where one of the first sports brand to change their perception from an overtly masculine brand to one that speaks to women as well. This was difficult for Nike due to the masculine associations with there iconic the line "just do it" as it can be very difficult to change an existing brands associations as exiting traits are ingrained in the consumers perception of the brand. In contrast Adidias have had some difficulty in changing there brand associations over the years from there original connection with male professional footballers. Although there mainstream clothing/brand has successfully targeted men and women in recent years there masculine association with football has been difficult to change. This analysis of Adidas development over the years has influenced the practical element of this brief as the designer aimed to create a more gender neutral representation of football within Adidas's website. Once this had been established the designer looked at women in football in order to see how best to showcase their involvement within the sport in a bid to normalise women's football and reduce the separation between men and women in the sport. However once initial practical experiments had been completed I felt this avenue was limited by lack of availability to relevant imagery, leading me to focus on the products sold by Adidas to show they sell ranges for both men and women. This approach allows the design of the football section of the website to focus on the products rather than professionals, allowing for a more gender neutral aesthetic to be created. Furthermore the addition of at 'get involved' section allows part of the website to address the social issue of lack of opportunities for girls in football. This issue has been solved by showcasing training days for both boys and girls as well as a news section which includes news about male and female professionals on the same platform. Showcasing men and women next to each other throughout the whole section allows the split between the two to be reduced, normalising women's football whilst not alienating men from the website. This outcome showcases the idea that men and women don't exclusively respond to masculinity or femininity but both which needs to be transferred to branding. The outcome also works to further Adidas progression to become more gender neutral as established within my written essay.
Overall I found this brief interesting to explore due to my personal interest surrounding gender and identity. Furthermore this brief allowed me to explore design for screen further and develop my skills as this is an area of design I feel I need to work on as previous experiments with designing website haven't been as successful. Despite this I personally feel the website created as part of the practical element for this module has be finished to a high standards, but could do with a little refinement in relation to presentation as I found it difficult to showcase some of the elements within the website as I need to work on my animation skills more.
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