Men are from Mars; women are from Venus. The masculine ideal is big and strong; feminine values are maternal, soft. The idea that men and women are different has been used throughout history to develop stories and provide persuasive imagery. It’s this continued gender stereotyping across mediums that has cemented gender differences and dynamics into our brains. 

In an effort to better understand the gender agenda, Neuro-Insight along with the7stars and Sign Salad produced a whitepaper, Beyond Binary, that explores how gender perceptions are changing. Understanding how brands should lean in to this shift starts with the brain. 

The gender story

Naturally, our brains are pre-disposed to respond to stories – it’s how humans make sense of the world around them. The brain looks for narratives to string together and these narratives encourage our brain to encode information into our long-term memory. Ads that resonate with our context and lived experiences have the most memorability, this is because personal relevance is a driver of memory. So, gender stereotypes for example – which align with...