Gender and credibility in branded storytelling

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to explore gender differences regarding how men and women perceive the story of a CEO and a customer of different genders in audio advertising. Design/methodology/approach A Web-based three-way factorial experiment was designed with three storyteller types (founder’s story, customer’s story vs informational ad), story teller’s gender (male voice vs female voice) and research participants’ gender (men vs women). In total, 549 participants were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Findings Researchers found gender-based differences in how audiences evaluated messages from the founder versus the customer of a company. There was a relationship between a male speaker’s perceived authoritativeness and audiences’ favorability to the ad, but no such relationship when the speaker was a woman. Practical implications A female voice elicited more favorable attitudes toward the non-story informational ad. In the customer’s story ad, relatability between the speaker and the audience mattered. Participants perceived the ad as more credible and convincing when the gender of the customer in the ad was the same as their gender. Social implications Women showed more favorable attitudes toward the male founder’s story compared to the female founder’s story. In evaluating the credibility of the female founder, audiences cared about her character (likability) rather than authoritativeness (expertise). Originality/value This study enriches the gender-related advertising-effect literature based on role congruity theory. The research contributes to the understanding of how gender bias still shapes the audiences’ evaluation of storyteller credibility.