Gender Portrayals in Nike Advertisements

Sabrina Brons, Rucsanda Junco, Ben Kirsch, Owen Krucoff and Doug Stehnach

University of Missouri- Columbia

Since its creation, Nike has become an influential part of American society. With this influence, they have

the power to affect the nation through their brand, products and advertisements. In this study, we

examined whether Nike advertisements promote gender stereotypes of femininity and masculinity, and

how this representation influences American culture. To do this, we examined different literary sources to

get a background in this topic, created our own set of coding to conduct this research and examined the

aftermath of our findings. From our research, we discovered that the difference in gender representation is

on an individual variable level. In terms of narrator, facial expression, screen time, physical activity, color

and clothing there is a misrepresentation of gender in Nike’s advertisements. We believe it is important to

analyze gender portrayals in Nike advertisements because of the way that they can impact the lives of

Americans. As such, we conducted this research to showcase harmful gender stereotypes depicted in Nike

advertisements and their effect on our society’s values.

Keywords: Nike, advertisement, gender, Title IX, athlete, masculinity, femininity

logo. They’ve trademarked a brand that went beyond one element through their product, motto and

advertisements. Because Nike has such an influential role on society, on the platform of sports, their

advertisements have a deeper impact. With each one, their messages subliminally reach consumers and

have consequences on the beliefs of Americans. As such, we believe it’s important to evaluate the

representation of gender in Nike advertisements. If Nike does make a potentially unconscious

misrepresentation or stereotyped depiction of gender, this will have implications on society. We think it is

likely based on psychological studies of media effects, that if Nike portrays gender in a certain light,

American society will be geared to follow those same ideals. So, if someone sees a Nike ad, print or

video, then they would be more propelled to think of the world in the way that Nike represents it.

Meaning, if Nike showcases women in a less athletic way, then society will think that women are less

athletic than men. As such, we believe that it’s important to utilize our role as watchdogs and ensure that

Nike is representing gender in American society justly. To discover whether Nike portrays gender

stereotypes, it is first necessary to describe the general nature of Nike. Second, it is important to see what

literature has previously said about gender portrayals in athletic brands and their advertisements. Third, it

is vital to evaluate various Nike advertisements across a wide span of time. Fourth, it is important to

evaluate how these results convey gender. Finally, it is necessary to determine how this representation of

gender and the extent of analysis has possible effects on consumers. It is important that society

understands the implications of Nike’s advertisements on our beliefs, lives and actions.

In order to analyze Nike advertisements, it is first important to analyze the Nike brand. Nike was

founded in 1964 as Blue Ribbon Sports. In 1971, Blue Ribbon Sports changed its name to Nike, after the

Greek goddess of victory. Later that year, the swoosh logo was designed. It was from here that Nike

franchised into the business they are today. Nike has since become the popular brand that so many

Americans, and people around the world, recognize for its quality and image. They have built their brand
through advertisements and in turn have created a company not just representing one product, but instead

the sports industry as a whole. Nike is not just about one running shoe or one line of clothes, it's about

athleticism, sportsmanship and the meaning behind society’s favorite pastime (Nazario & Roach, 2015). It

is through the use of advertising that Nike has propelled their brand into a mainstream part of society. In

the building of their repertoire, these advertisements depict the way in which society sees their brand and

decides to pursue the “Just do it” motto.

It is important to analyze Nike advertisements because of the societal impact it has for the

American population. When Americans watch advertisements or see them in print form, they understand

the world as they see it because of the increase in media in the modern age. This is a possible

consequence of Nike advertisements since media advertising is so ingrained in American culture. If

someone is watching TV, they will see commercials; if they are flipping through a magazine, they will

see ads; and, if they are watching a movie, they will see product placement. Sometimes consumers are

aware of these advertisements, but other times they exist in their lives unbeknownst. Whether consumers

realize it or not, they are impacted by the advertisements placed in front of them and they will begin to

see the world in the same way that it is represented in these advertisements. This idea is an example of the

cultivation effect, which says that the more someone consumes a particular media, the more likely one

expects to see the world in the same way it is represented (Campbell, Martin & Fabos, 2017). We believe

that commercials and media advertisements follow the cultivation effect since subliminal advertisements

play a part in our everyday lives. So, because of the presence of advertisements in America, as consumers

see more Nike ads, they will be more likely to understand the world in the way Nike represents it. In order

to ensure true equality between genders, we must see brands represent America as the way it should be.

This is why it’s important to understand gender representations in Nike advertisements.

studies done on gender portrayals throughout athletic brand advertisements in order to clearly define what

our artifact and variables were. The first study we found, “‘They Never Do This to Men:’ College Women

Athletes' Responses to Sexualized Images of Professional Women Athletes,” focused on the pressure

facing women to be great athletes and sexual objects at the same time. Women are forced to present

themselves in a feminine fashion or risk being advertised as unattractive, masculine or lesbian. The study

found that these female athletes are pressured to conform to society’s expectations. Additionally, the

article presents data on stereotyping, double standards and body image in sports advertisements. For

example, out of the 11% of advertisements which were sports related, women were only in 3% of those

advertisements (Everbach & Mumah, 2014). This data sample inspired us to see if both genders were

equally depicted in Nike ads.

In “Icons of Liberty or Objects of Desire? American Women Olympians and the Politics of

Consumption,” the author, Mark Dyreson, examines the role of women in the sports industry, specifically

at the Olympics. Dyreson questions whether female athletes were depicted as icons of liberty or objects of

industry, essentially studying if women were viewed for their achievements or as objects for male

pleasure. Dyerson discovered that when women’s feminine qualities are combined with athletic talent

(more masculine qualities), a sort of third gender occured where female athletes are often categorized. It

is in this third gender that women must prove that they are athletically capable while the media depicts

them as objects of desire (Dyreson, 2003). It was from this article that we decided to evaluate the

portrayals of femininity and masculinity in our study.

Another article that influenced our study was “Athletic or Sexy? A Comparison of Female

Athletes and Fashion Models in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues.” This article researched the

differences between female athletes and swimsuit models. The differences turned out to be almost

nonexistent. In order to pinpoint the sexualization of female athletes and models, the researchers of this
study looked at their own code book of categories, variables and descriptions (Kim & Sagas, 2014). Many

of these categories, including location, facial expression, body position and hand display, influenced our

own variables.

We also examined “Teaching Athletics and Gender: A Pedagogical Narrative” from the Women’s

Studies Quarterly. This editorial examined a class called “Athletics and Gender” at George Washington

University, which focuses on the social stigmas against women in sports. It drew interest mainly from

NCAA students and adults who coach in the community. The class discussed questions that women face

in the athletic world: What is their sexuality? Why are they buff? What makes female exercise seem

unnatural? Why does society emphasize fair judgment, but then downplay women in sports? This class

examined multiple gender theories and drew conclusions from them. These conclusions included a

correlation between physical aggression in sports, the amount male athletes are paid and sexual violence.

The class used these conclusions to evaluate the impact of Title IX on female athletes (Morris, 2005). The

mention of Title IX in this article helped us chose a time period to analyze Nike advertisements.

Another author, Victoria Carty, also examined Title IX and its impact on Nike advertisements. In

“Textual Portrayals of Female Athletes: Liberation or Nuanced Forms of Patriarchy” Carty researched the

increase of women in sports and in athletic related advertisements since Title IX. The issue, however, is

that female athletes often contradict feminine stereotypes, causing ad agencies to find ways to sexualize

women’s bodies through their muscle and tone. To prove this, the article examined Nike commercials that

aired during highly publicized sporting events. One Nike commercial that aired after the 1999 Women’s

World Cup showed Brandi Chastain only wearing her cleats. While Chastain said that she was proud of

her body and wanted to show it off, a lot of the reviews depicted Chastain as an object of sexual fantasy,

where Chastain’s attractiveness outweighed her achievements. Another Nike ad, “I can,” showcased men

and women, but showed men enduring pain while the women simply endured life (Carty, 2005). This
article helped us directly correlate our research with a study that saw some of the same effects we

previously noticed in today’s society.

The final article, “Stories of Community: The First Ten Years of Nike Women's Advertising,”

analyzed twenty-seven Nike print advertisements from 1990 to 2000 and evaluated how the Nike brand

shaped and changed female athletes. When Nike began advertising to women in 1990, they began

creating a community for female athletes. Before Nike’s advertisements in magazines, women’s

magazines were only full of ways for women to fix themselves. Nobody suggested that women could try

something for free, such as working out or playing sports. But as Nike started to promote the athletic

female community as a whole, more and more women felt empowered. Viewers were influenced by

Nike’s ideology of emphasizing female power and community over the stereotypical femininity (Grow,

2006). It is from this article that we saw how Nike could and has changed the perception of society.

By researching these articles, it appears that while female representation in athletic advertising has

increased, there are still issues to be seen in the portrayal and equality of women. These sources of

literature helped us understand what should be tested in our study, so we could see whether or not there is

a difference in gender representation. It is important for us to analyze this difference so we can see how

American society is impacted by Nike advertisements.

To start off our research, we agreed to each analyze five different Nike advertisements. This

resulted in a total of 25 artifacts that we coded, which we believe is a substantial amount of evidence for

our sample. We decided to code advertisements that were made from 1972 to the present. The reason we

chose this date was because this is when the civil rights law Title IX was passed. Title IX states that no

person will be discriminated against based on sex (“Overview of Title IX,” 2015). Essentially, it promotes

equality between the sexes. What we wanted to see was if gender was still unequally represented since the

passing of Title IX and if Nike promoted gender stereotypes. The mediums of publication we focused on

to study this were video and print. We studied these platforms because the advertisements came straight
from Nike, unlike product placement. Out of the 25 advertisements sampled, 11 of them were print and 14

of them were video. The print ads typically came from advertisements in magazines. The video

advertisements were originally aired through a variety of ways, such as on television or online. To find

the print advertisements we searched Google and found various websites compiling multiple ads. For the

video advertisements, we mainly used Youtube to search and view them. There is an expansive amount of

advertisements from Nike, so we had to randomly sample them.

The variables used to code the ads with numerical values focused on gendering and ad

complexity. First, the gender of the narrator and the gender of the athlete were recorded. These two

variables were the foundation of our study and became a basis for us to compare the rest of our variables

to. Next, facial expression was recorded since men have stereotypically been portrayed as more stern and

serious. The options were: no face seen, positive emotion (smiling or no emotion) and negative emotion

(angry or sad). Video advertisements had screen time for both men and women as a percentage of the

total number of seconds the advertisement lasted. Men and women also had percentage screen time spent

doing physical work and time spent speaking recorded separately. The color scheme of the advertisement

was marked as either being warm or brightly colored (feminine), or cool or muted colored (masculine).

Monochrome ads were marked 0 and ads without preference to color were 3. We then looked at the

setting and determined where the advertisement took place: ballet studio, nature, tennis court, soccer field,

gym, weight room, basketball court or football field. This was by far the variable with the most options,

giving information about the level of specificity and target audience of the ad. Articles of clothing and

skin exposure were studied due to the societal expectation of women showing more skin than men or

being sexualized through their clothing. The next variable we analyzed was the product endorsed. The

options included clothing, equipment (including shoes), physical health/general sports, a specific sport or

a specific sporting event. Next, we looked to see if there was a major sporting event that the

advertisement was created to promote. Lastly, we looked at endorsements. We evaluated if the

moment or a team endorsement.

Rating of these advertisements was done on a scale that showed an increase in masculinity and ad

complexity. Of the data analyzed, seven of 10 print ads and six of 13 video ads featured women. To find

the difference in sample size between male and female ads, the standard error was calculated and revealed

a p-score of >.2. This meant that the null hypothesis could not be rejected and the difference between

samples (between ads that have male or female athletes) was not significant. Despite this, it is important

to analyze each variable individually since the t-test examined the data as a whole, instead of at an

individualistic level. On a smaller level, individual aspects of these advertisements can still impact

American society in their respective representations of gender.

The small number of ads with both genders featured, as well as many other variables, indicate a

difference between genders in advertisements. When testing our variables, we found that every female ad

had a narrator who was also female. In comparison, only two male ads and one non-gendered ad had

narrators. Of time spent of screen, the narrator in female ads spoke longer than the narrator in male ads

and women did less physical activity. Also, women, on average, also had more screen time in their ads

than men (15.79% difference). Non-gendered ads by comparison, showed males for 65% and females for

35% of total screen time. Of this time spent on screen, ads with female athletes had women performing

physical activity 20.1% longer than speaking. Men, on average, spoke for less time and spent 39.22%

more time on activity. Another difference was seen in the facial expressions of the athletes. Although

most athletes displayed blank or emotionless faces overall, only female ads featured negative facial

expressions. These advertisements showed women for less time, doing less physical activity and having

negative facial expressions, giving the connotation that women are unhappy when exercising and do less

physical activity overall.

though female ads did not have a preference for cool colors (33.3%), male ads had significantly more cool

colors (57.1%). This promotes color association for genders (as warm colors, pink, are typically

associated with girls while cool colors, blue, are associated with boys). Although there wasn’t a huge

difference in color, the preference of male ads to use cooler tones promotes gender stereotypes.

Unlike color, there did not seem to be a correlation for how setting and gender relate. Settings were

ordered in increasing popularity of sport, with ballet being the least popular (and most feminine) and

football being the most popular (and most masculine). We found, however, that there were limitations and

variance with coding setting since many ads took place in a vague, fantasy-like setting. Because of the

ambiguous coding system, a standard deviation of 5.508 indicated a large variation between the setting

values. For videos specifically, we also studied the music used. Slow music would seem less intense and

more feminine, but all ads showed a preference for fast music regardless of gender. The setting and music

used did not provide as accurate data to showcase a gap in gender representation in Nike advertisements.

While there seemed to be no correlation between some elements, there was a strong correlation

between gender and clothing. Women, on average, were less modestly dressed (showing more skin on

their arms, legs and stomach) than men. On a scale of 1-3 (3 being the most modestly covered), women’s

clothing had an average of 1.6, with a median of 1, and men’s clothing has an average of 1.857, with a

median of 2. From this information, it can be seen that generally in Nike advertisements, women expose

more skin and wear less clothes than men. Since most female consumers have started using athletic

clothes for everyday wear, there were more Nike ads for clothes geared towards women. Most ads with

male athletes, however, focused on specific sports or sporting events. Moreover, more male athletes were

endorsed by Nike and showcased in their advertisements.

Although not every variable we tested showed a gender stereotype, we noticed that a difference in

gender representations did exist in terms of narrator, facial expression, screen time, physical activity,
color and clothing. Overall, these elements showcase a series of Nike advertisements that do a relatively

good job not perpetuating every gender stereotype, but still manage to create a divide between men and

women, masculinity and femininity. This is important to notice because of the implications which these

representations will have on our society.

Having examined the nature of gender representation in Nike advertisements, it was essential to

determine the potential effects of these representations on consumers and viewers of the ads. The impacts

on consumers’ lives are what make artifacts such as these worth studying. Nike’s advertisements are a

reflection of society because they build off of cultural norms and ideas surrounding gender stereotypes.

Social learning theory tells us that people’s beliefs are influenced by what they see and experience, and

that is certainly true for these advertisements (Campbell et al., 2017). Nike is a widely recognized and

influential brand, and its advertisements therefore have the power to affect the minds of their audience.

Another quality of advertisements is their ability to be linked to the experiences they pay to be associated

with. If someone sees a Nike advertisement while watching their favorite show or reading their favorite

magazine, especially if the ad appears on a recurring basis, the ideas in this advertisement could

potentially become linked to the experience, making their effects on the consumer more powerful.

In our research, we found that these effects could be positive or negative on audiences’ perceptions of the

role of women in sports. “Textual Portrayals of Female Athletes: Liberation or Nuanced Forms of

Patriarchy” described how appearances can trump accomplishments when successful female athletes are

sexualized or depicted in a non-athletic manner. Since our research indicated that advertisements

designated as female had more emotion that those designated as male, and that women tend to be dressed

less modest than, this representation could affect the mind of a consumer. A viewer may know that Serena

Williams is one of the greatest tennis players of all time, but if she is sexualized or portrayed as

emotionally different from her male counterparts, these portrayals can take precedence over her athletic

achievements. Our research also noted the increased presence of warm colors in female advertisements as
compared to male ones, which can increase the effects of femininity over real-life accomplishments. We

believe this could thus correlate to how everyday women see themselves, in a way that is athletically less

than men because of these depictions.

One similarity in gender portrayal noted in our research was the use of fast-paced music in all

types of Nike advertisements. This continuity, as is true with portrayal similarities, can have the effect of

unifying the images of male and female athletes to a consumer. If a viewer of Nike advertisements sees

how men and women are each accompanied with fast-paced music in their ads, they are less likely to

think of them as fundamentally different. The same would be true if women were dressed in cool colors

or more conservative outfits like those found in male advertisements.

We also found in our research that there was a distinct difference in target audience between male

and female advertisements. Female advertisements focused more on their female subjects than male or

mixed-gender ads did on their male subjects. This means that ads with female athletes focused more on

their sex than the sport. Female ads seemed to send a message about how women can be athletic and play

sports, while male ads were interpreted as being messages about specific sports. This could make women

be seen as an extra, abnormal aspect of sports whereas men would be a natural fit. This could then reduce

female participation in sports because of a perceived lower level of significance or relevance. These

differences affect how an audience perceives the legitimacy of women’s sports.

Our research on Nike advertisements has indicated potential positive and negative effects on the

perception of women in sports based on their portrayals in the ads. Given Nike’s prominent stature and

popularity as an athletic brand, the power these advertisements and their messages could hold over an

audience is significant, both as a determinant of an audience’s beliefs and as a reflection of current

societal norms. It is important to understand these possible effects and how they can be caused by

differences in gender portrayal in order to grasp the true power of media and its messages.
 As a society, it is vital that we understand the consequences of Nike’s advertisements on our own

beliefs, lives and actions. By looking at the nature of the Nike brand, literature analysis, Nike

advertisements, gender and its representation, we can see that there is a correlation between individual

variables in their advertisements and gender. It is important that as a society, we understand the

implications of this on our everyday lives. American society is fighting for equality, but if brands like

Nike represent gender in an unbalanced way, these gendered stereotypes will continue to have a hold on

our lives. We must see that Nike accurately portrays society. We must see that gender is represented

justly. We must see that our brands represent who we truly are, and more importantly, who we should be.
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