A recent Rutgers University study on the impact of imagery in science texts sheds some light on why after more than a decade of talking about marketing to women effectively, brands still fail.  

Its simple really.  When boys and girls are given texts of content with imagery that reflects their gender, they do better.  Since most scientific texts feature males, there wasn't a big lift in performance among boys who read texts with male scientists.  But when girls were given the exact same text with images of women, their scores went up.  

While the sample was small and more research is warranted, researchers do believe that when people are given visual cues about what society expects, they tend to fulfill those expectations.  So when girls fail to see women working in scientific fields, they may subconsciously believe that women don't do well in those fields.

I wonder if the same is true for marketing to women.  The familiar stereotypes of women shown in advertising either as dumb blondes, well-endowed sex symbols, overly zealous Type A workaholics or mopping, carpooling, frazzled moms may be perpetuating the myths about women and preventing marketers from seeing them as they really are.  We need to encourage and support those brands that get it right and steer others to follow their lead.

What brands are doing a good job of painting women as we really are?