Keywords: gender, marketing, advertising, self-brand connection, gender stereotypes, gender marketing

The evolution of the concept of gender and the growing fight against stereotypes are questioning the relevance of gender marketing. Despite the benefits of gender marketing from a business point of view, consumers' opinions about gender marketing seem to be divided. It also questions current marketing practices and their effect on society: does marketing merely reflect society, or does it have the power to shape it? A study carried out among 243 participants measured their evaluation of (non-)gendered packages for a fictitious cheese brand and confirmed that consumers do not respond positively to gender marketing, partly because they do not identify with the brand. These results, considered in the light of the literature review, led to a reflection on the subject. Advertisements that convey a degrading image of one of the two genders or that are explicitly gendered should certainly be banned. But when it comes to advertisements that play on colours or shapes without conveying stereotypes, is it really appropriate to talk about sexism, or is this a way of unintentionally continuing to convey stereotypes? Could using stereotypical codes to sell to everyone be a way for marketers to fight these stereotypes? This work makes a theoretical contribution, particularly in the use of a measure of gender that takes account of the evolution in this concept. In addition, managerial recommendations have been drawn up for companies wishing to fight gender stereotypes through their marketing strategies.

RÉSUMÉ

L'évolution de la notion de genre et la lutte croissante contre les stéréotypes de genre remettent en question les stratégies de marketing genré. Malgré les bénéfices qu'engendrent le marketing genré du point de vue des entreprises, les consommateurs paraissent mitigés sur la question. En outre, cela questionne les pratiques actuelles du marketing et leur effet sur la société : le marketing reflète-t-il seulement la société ou a-t-il le pouvoir de façonner cette dernière ? Dans le cadre ce travail, une étude a été menée auprès de 243 participants sur leur évaluation d'un packaging (non) genré pour une marque fictive de fromages, confirmant la réactance des consommateurs face au marketing genré, ces derniers ne se reconnaissant pas à travers la marque. Ces résultats, considérés dans la continuité de la revue de littérature, ont mené à une réflexion sur le sujet. Les publicités véhiculant une image dégradante de l'un des deux genres ou explicitement genrées sont, certes, à bannir. Or, concernant les publicités jouant sur les couleurs ou les formes uniquement sans expliciter un genre comme cible, est-ce réellement approprié de crier au sexisme ou est-ce une façon de continuer à transmettre les stéréotypes de manière inintentionnelle ? Utiliser des codes stéréotypiques pour justement vendre à toutes et tous ne serait-ce pas un moyen pour les spécialistes du marketing de combattre ces stéréotypes ? Ce travail apporte une contribution théorique, notamment dans l'utilisation d'une mesure du genre prenant en compte les évolutions de cette notion. De plus, des recommandations managériales ont été établies, s'adressant aux entreprises souhaitant s'engager dans la lutte contre les stéréotypes de genre par le biais de leurs stratégies marketing.

INTRODUCTION

In 2021, the toy known as "Mr. Potato Head" has changed its name to "Potato Head", a name that does not link it to any gender. This change is part of a wider trend for companies to move towards gender-neutral marketing. Cambridge Dictionary defines something gender-neutral as "relating neither especially to men nor to women"1 . By extension, the aim of gender-neutral marketing is to focus on the needs, values, personality, and habits of the target audience to sell a product, rather than on gender roles. It is thus opposed to gender marketing, a marketing strategy that consists in targeting a particular sex through the characteristics of the brand and/or the product (American Marketing Association, 2019). In most cases, gender marketing is based on stereotypes, defined by American Psychological Association as "a set of cognitive generalizations (e.g., beliefs, expectations) about the qualities and characteristics of the members of a group or social category" 2 .

For example, saying that women are sweet and sensitive while men are strong and do not show their emotions is gender stereotyping. Although stereotypes have been studied in literature for decades, they remain an issue in marketing, and particularly in advertising. In 2018, Kantar released the figures from its AdReaction study, which aimed to assess how advertising is perceived by marketers and consumers. 98% of ads for detergents, cleaning products or baby products target women only, in line with the traditional gender roles conveyed by stereotypes. 91% of marketers believe that women are positively represented in advertising -in contrast, only 55% of consumers do. This shows that there is a real gap between those who create advertising and those for whom it is intended.

Hence, gender in marketing is an interesting issue for companies, representing a real challenge for marketers. As well as being a major commercial issue, this question of gender is also a societal issue.

According to the Pew Research Center [START_REF] Brown | About 5% of young adults in the U.S. say their gender is different from their sex assigned at birth[END_REF], 1.6% of the population of the United States declare themselves to be transgender or non-binary, and this figure rises to 5.1% among 18-29-yearolds. In a study conducted by The Innovation Group [START_REF] Laughlin | Gen Z goes beyond gender binaries in new Innovation Group data[END_REF] among 300 people from Generation Y and 300 people from Generation Z, 76% of respondents believe that gender is gradually becoming less important in defining a person's identity. More than half of people know at least one non-binary person, and around 69% say they are more accepting of non-binarity than they were a year ago. Non-binarity is therefore becoming more and more prevalent, and the notion of gender is becoming increasingly complex to study in a more holistic approach, given its evolution over the decades. It is therefore the duty of marketers to review gender in an approach that is intended to be evolving and plural. Moreover, the literature tends to question the role of advertising in fighting 2 gender stereotypes [START_REF] Gerbner | Living With Television: The Violence Profile[END_REF][START_REF] Pollay | The Distorted Mirror: Reflections on the Unintended Consequences of Advertising[END_REF][START_REF] Stevens | Representations of Femininity and Masculinity in Advertising Practices[END_REF][START_REF] Vadakkepatt | Can advertising benefit women's development? Preliminary insights from a multi-method investigation[END_REF][START_REF] Yoon | A femvertising campaign always #LikeAGirl: video responses and audience interactions on YouTube[END_REF]. Advertising has long been seen as a reflection of society and its principles [START_REF] Eisend | A meta-analysis of gender roles in advertising[END_REF][START_REF] Holbrook | Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, What's Unfair in the Reflections on Advertising[END_REF], which would imply that the disappearance of sexist advertising would be conditional on the disappearance of gender stereotypes in society. However, this approach has been contradicted by many authors [START_REF] Pollay | The Distorted Mirror: Reflections on the Unintended Consequences of Advertising[END_REF][START_REF] Stevens | Representations of Femininity and Masculinity in Advertising Practices[END_REF][START_REF] Vadakkepatt | Can advertising benefit women's development? Preliminary insights from a multi-method investigation[END_REF], defending the idea that advertising also plays a role in shaping societal ideas, beliefs, and values. The use of gendered advertising could therefore have an impact on society by helping to convey gender stereotypes. This is the context in which this master's thesis is set. The main aim of this work is to understand the commercial and societal issues surrounding (non-)gendered advertising in the context of the evolving notion of gender, both from the point of view of companies and consumers. This work is therefore divided into two parts. The first part aims to draw up a state-of-the-art on the notion of gender in advertising, from both a business-centric and a consumer-centric approach, to understand what is at stake in the use of gender in advertising for both stakeholders. Next, a survey was conducted among 243 consumers, in which consumers' behavioural intentions towards a product based on its package were assessed. The self-brand connection was also measured for the mediating effect it could have in this relationship, given the evolution of gender and of its place in consumer identity. Data analysis enabled to put the results into perspective with the existing literature and to explain how gender in advertising can influence consumer behavioural intentions, thereby understanding the commercial and societal implications of the use of gendered or non-gendered advertising.

CHAPTER 1 -THE NOTION OF GENDER IN ADVERTISING PRACTICES

The aim of this section is to present an overview of gender in marketing, with the evolution of the concept of gender having a direct impact on gender marketing. This opens new perspectives in marketing research, as the measurement of gender is no longer based solely on the masculinityfemininity continuum. Another key concept in the study of gender in marketing literature is stereotyping. Advertising is criticised for conveying gender stereotypes in many markets. This raises new questions for marketers in terms of the manipulation of gender in their marketing strategies.

I. GENDER AS AN EVOLVING CONCEPT

A. The distinction between "sex" and "gender"

A few decades ago, the difference between "sex" and "gender" was barely discussed in literature and researchers tended to use interchangeably these terms. This approach is now disappearing, and the majority agrees that a border does exist [START_REF] Glasser | On the Vague Meaning of "Gender" in Education Research: The Problem, Its Sources, and Recommendations for Practice[END_REF][START_REF] Muehlenhard | Distinguishing Between Sex and Gender: History, Current Conceptualizations, and Implications[END_REF][START_REF] Oakley | Sex, Gender and Society[END_REF][START_REF] Pryzgoda | Definitions of Gender and Sex: The Subtleties of Meaning[END_REF]. Oakley has been a pioneer in defining "gender" and its difference with "sex", indicating that sex is "a biological term" while gender is "a psychological and cultural one" (1972, p.158). Gender is a rather difficult concept to define in comparison with sex: for example, Oakley specifies in her book (1972, p.158) that cultures can differ on the exact meaning of gender. Hence, the exact terms should be male/female for sex and masculinity/femininity for gender. The measures would not be the same: sex can be seen as a classification by category, whereas gender is a sum of masculinity and femininity. However, most of individuals possess both a share of masculinity and a share of femininity, resulting in an infinite number of categories. Although the literature shows the difficulty researchers have had in differentiating between these concepts over time, the general idea that emanates from most of the papers is that "sex" is generally related to biological characteristics differing between males and females, whereas "gender" is related to a more cultural, behavioural, social approach which allows humans to categorise themselves [START_REF] Glasser | On the Vague Meaning of "Gender" in Education Research: The Problem, Its Sources, and Recommendations for Practice[END_REF][START_REF] Muehlenhard | Distinguishing Between Sex and Gender: History, Current Conceptualizations, and Implications[END_REF][START_REF] Pryzgoda | Definitions of Gender and Sex: The Subtleties of Meaning[END_REF], in line with Oakley's definition (1972, p.158). Over time, people also started to differentiate these terms: for example, a study led by [START_REF] Pryzgoda | Definitions of Gender and Sex: The Subtleties of Meaning[END_REF] has shown that people associated the term "gender" to social contexts and the term "sex" to biological contexts when researchers asked them to complete sentences with the most suitable term (i.e., "sex" or "gender").

B. From a unidimensional to a multidimensional concept

The measurement of gender has particularly evolved throughout the last century: placing individuals on the masculinity/femininity continuum is no longer accurate to represent gender (Zosuls et al., 2011). Some authors studied this evolution, and especially how gender shifted from an unidimensional notion to a multidimensional one through decades (Benoit-Moreau, 2020, p.23;[START_REF] Jones | Measuring gender in consumer research: Validity and consumer welfare[END_REF][START_REF] Ulrich | The relevance of multifactorial gender and its measure in marketing[END_REF]. In the 30s, researchers were considering masculinity and femininity as opposite terms on the same continuum to measure gender (Benoit-Moreau, 2020, p.23). In the 1970s, the measurement of gender became two-dimensional, with the Bem Sex Role Inventory that considers masculinity and femininity as two separate dimensions [START_REF] Bem | The measurement of psychological androgyny[END_REF], which means that everyone has some masculine and feminine traits, whatever gender the person identifies with (Zosuls et al., 2011). Judith [START_REF] Butler | Trouble sur le genre : le féminisme et la subversion de l'identité[END_REF] is also one of the leading researchers on individual gender issues, being the first to defend queer theory, which suggests that gender is only a social construct and that biology has no impact on it; gender is thus a social role held by the individual that can take on an infinite form, thus defending the non-binarity of gender (cited in Benoit-Moreau, 2020, p.25), which gives a new perspective on gender to research, and in particular regarding the question of gender in marketing.

C. Gender in marketing literature

Gender is barely used in marketing [START_REF] Baxter | Ads aimed at dads: exploring consumers' reactions towards advertising that conforms and challenges traditional gender role ideologies[END_REF][START_REF] Bhanja | It is better with a shade of blue! Consumer evaluation of unisex extension of brands[END_REF][START_REF] Borau | Gendered products act as the extended phenotype of human sexual dimorphism: They increase physical attractiveness and desirability[END_REF][START_REF] Chu | The effect of non-stereotypical gender role advertising on consumer evaluation[END_REF][START_REF] Cramphorn | Gender effects in advertising[END_REF][START_REF] Markham | An international study of unisex and "same-name" fragrance brands[END_REF][START_REF] Morrison | Gender-Role Congruence and Self-Referencing as Determinants of Advertising Effectiveness[END_REF][START_REF] Spielmann | Real Men Don't Buy "Mrs. Clean": Gender Bias in Gendered Brands[END_REF][START_REF] Subroto | The effects of gendered marketing on brand perception and purchase intention[END_REF][START_REF] Ulrich | The relevance of multifactorial gender and its measure in marketing[END_REF][START_REF] Van Tilburg | Beyond "Pink It and Shrink It" Perceived Product Gender, Aesthetics, and Product Evaluation[END_REF]. Consequently, some authors offer an overview of marketing practices that involve questions related to gender [START_REF] Ulrich | The relevance of multifactorial gender and its measure in marketing[END_REF][START_REF] Wolin | Gender Issues in Advertising--An Oversight Synthesis of Research: 1970-2002[END_REF]. The question of gender is involved in many stages of the implementation of a marketing strategy, for instance when a company assigns a gender to its brand [START_REF] Ulrich | The relevance of multifactorial gender and its measure in marketing[END_REF][START_REF] Wolin | Gender Issues in Advertising--An Oversight Synthesis of Research: 1970-2002[END_REF], when establishing a segmentation strategy [START_REF] Wolin | Gender Issues in Advertising--An Oversight Synthesis of Research: 1970-2002[END_REF], when choosing a way to convey a message [START_REF] Ulrich | The relevance of multifactorial gender and its measure in marketing[END_REF][START_REF] Wolin | Gender Issues in Advertising--An Oversight Synthesis of Research: 1970-2002[END_REF] or when analysing consumers' attitude towards a campaign [START_REF] Ulrich | The relevance of multifactorial gender and its measure in marketing[END_REF][START_REF] Wolin | Gender Issues in Advertising--An Oversight Synthesis of Research: 1970-2002[END_REF]. Thus, gender issues arise throughout the development of a marketing strategy, demonstrating the vast field of application that marketing strategy represents for the study of gender.

II. GENDER STEREOTYPES IN ADVERTISING

A. Defining a gender stereotype

A stereotype is defined by the American Psychology Association as "a set of cognitive generalizations (e.g., beliefs, expectations) about the qualities and characteristics of the members of a group or social category. Stereotypes, like schemas, simplify and expedite perceptions and judgments, but they are often exaggerated, negative rather than positive, and resistant to revision even when perceivers encounter individuals with qualities that are not congruent with the stereotype"3 . The Social Role Theory, developed by [START_REF] Eagly | Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology. 1 Oliver's Yard[END_REF], explains the origin of gender stereotypes. Human activities and behaviours are socially defined. First, labour had been divided by gender because of biological reasons. Moreover, behaviours are governed by self-concept (i.e., showing gender-stereotypic behaviour if self-concept fits gender stereotypes), others' expectations (i.e., being socially penalised for actions that do not fit the stereotypical expectations of society) and biological process (i.e., activation of hormones leading to behave as stereotyped behaviour dictates) [START_REF] Eagly | Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology. 1 Oliver's Yard[END_REF]. Thus, the social categorisation associated with gender [START_REF] Glasser | On the Vague Meaning of "Gender" in Education Research: The Problem, Its Sources, and Recommendations for Practice[END_REF][START_REF] Muehlenhard | Distinguishing Between Sex and Gender: History, Current Conceptualizations, and Implications[END_REF][START_REF] Oakley | Sex, Gender and Society[END_REF][START_REF] Pryzgoda | Definitions of Gender and Sex: The Subtleties of Meaning[END_REF] creates stereotypical behaviour to which humans relate. Gender stereotypes have been of interest to researchers from multiple domains for decades. However, everyone (i.e., regardless of gender) [START_REF] Hentschel | The Multiple Dimensions of Gender Stereotypes: A Current Look at Men's and Women's Characterizations of Others and Themselves[END_REF][START_REF] Williams | The definition of sex stereotypes via the adjective check list[END_REF] keeps applying these stereotypes in their judgement of others.

B. Main gender stereotypes

Deaux & Lewis identified four independent components of gender stereotyping (1984), with a feminine and a masculine version for each [START_REF] Eisend | A meta-analysis of gender roles in advertising[END_REF]:

➢ Personality traits + role behaviours: women tend to be considered as more communal [START_REF] Eagly | Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology. 1 Oliver's Yard[END_REF][START_REF] Hentschel | The Multiple Dimensions of Gender Stereotypes: A Current Look at Men's and Women's Characterizations of Others and Themselves[END_REF], which includes dimensions of concern for others, sociability and emotional sensitivity [START_REF] Hentschel | The Multiple Dimensions of Gender Stereotypes: A Current Look at Men's and Women's Characterizations of Others and Themselves[END_REF] with socioemotional [START_REF] Eagly | Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology. 1 Oliver's Yard[END_REF][START_REF] Hentschel | The Multiple Dimensions of Gender Stereotypes: A Current Look at Men's and Women's Characterizations of Others and Themselves[END_REF][START_REF] Williams | The definition of sex stereotypes via the adjective check list[END_REF] and caregiving [START_REF] Borau | The most human bot: Female gendering increases humanness perceptions of bots and acceptance of AI[END_REF][START_REF] Eagly | Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology. 1 Oliver's Yard[END_REF][START_REF] Gray | Emotional labour, gender and professional stereotypes of emotional and physical contact, and personal perspectives on the emotional labour of nursing[END_REF][START_REF] Tay | When stereotypes meet robots: The double-edge sword of robot gender and personality in human-robot interaction[END_REF] roles. Men, on the other hand, tend to be considered as more agentic [START_REF] Eagly | Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology. 1 Oliver's Yard[END_REF], which includes dimensions of competence, assertiveness and independence [START_REF] Hentschel | The Multiple Dimensions of Gender Stereotypes: A Current Look at Men's and Women's Characterizations of Others and Themselves[END_REF].

➢ Occupational stereotypes: home health aide, babysitter, nurse, receptionist tend to be considered stereotypically female occupations [START_REF] Bryant | Why Should We Gender?: The Effect of Robot Gendering and Occupational Stereotypes on Human Trust and Perceived Competency[END_REF] as they require qualities related to communion [START_REF] Hentschel | The Multiple Dimensions of Gender Stereotypes: A Current Look at Men's and Women's Characterizations of Others and Themselves[END_REF]. Occupations such as security guard, surgeon or fire-fighter are considered stereotypically male occupations [START_REF] Bryant | Why Should We Gender?: The Effect of Robot Gendering and Occupational Stereotypes on Human Trust and Perceived Competency[END_REF] as they qualities related to agency [START_REF] Hentschel | The Multiple Dimensions of Gender Stereotypes: A Current Look at Men's and Women's Characterizations of Others and Themselves[END_REF]. Among these components, occupational status seems to be the most used in advertising [START_REF] Eisend | A meta-analysis of gender roles in advertising[END_REF].

➢ Physical appearance: this type of stereotypes is especially used in advertising. Both females and males in advertising must embody sensuality. However, while women's body tend to be merely presented as a sensual object, men's body must be represented in action (e. g. doing sport) so that it represents stereotypically male clichés such as bulging muscles, sweating or physical dominance [START_REF] Stevens | Representations of Femininity and Masculinity in Advertising Practices[END_REF].

More generally, gender stereotypes are recurrent in advertising: for instance, a meta-analysis about gender roles in advertising based on 64 studies has shown that women are presented only visually (without talking) significantly more than males, as they were only represented for their physical appearance [START_REF] Grau | Gender stereotypes in advertising: a review of current research[END_REF]. Also, they are significantly more presented as users instead of professionals, in dependent roles, in domestic environments promoting domestic products, youngers and giving opinions instead of scientific arguments [START_REF] Eisend | A meta-analysis of gender roles in advertising[END_REF]. These representations clearly convey stereotypes of women as less independent and less competent than men. Also, both women and men apply these stereotypes to themselves. For example, women keep judging themselves as less competent and with less leadership, whereas men consider themselves as less communal [START_REF] Hentschel | The Multiple Dimensions of Gender Stereotypes: A Current Look at Men's and Women's Characterizations of Others and Themselves[END_REF]. Hence, stereotypes seem to have an impact on consumers, who consequently conform to them, which leads companies to keep conveying these stereotypes and consumers to keep conforming with stereotypes.

C. Managerial examples of gender stereotypes in advertising

Some companies particularly play with stereotypes in their advertising campaigns. Here is an example of an advertisement created by Darty, a French household appliances brand: This campaign was considered particularly sexist by Internet users (LSA Conso, 2013). Regarding the key components of stereotyping considered above [START_REF] Deaux | Structure of gender stereotypes: Interrelationships among components and gender label[END_REF], the physical appearance is clearly stereotypical (i.e. a strong man to protect his beautiful blonde girlfriend), as well as the role behaviours that this implies (i.e., the woman who loves to shop online and the man who carries her packages, and she takes care of him in return as her posture suggests). Almost thirty years separate Deaux and Lewis' paper about stereotypes components (1984) and this Darty advertisement. This is proof that stereotypes persist over time and that marketing continues to use it them as an effective sales strategy.

Apericube, a brand of cheese for aperitifs, has also been at the centre of a controversy after marketing this 2-pack of cheese [START_REF] Gourion | Marketing genré et sexisme: le top 10 des produits «pour femmes» les plus étranges[END_REF]: Once again, these products suggest a specific role behaviour and personality traits for men and women: men, as leaders and competitors, will play poker while women will spend the evening gossiping. However, it should be noted that the stereotype is less powerful than in the previous advertisement: in this second advertisement, role behaviour is implied but is not as degrading as in the first advertisement. This shows that there are many ways of stereotyping, and that some adverts are harsher than others on the image of women and men they project, and therefore on the stereotypes they can convey. The marketing approach of this cheese advert remains questionable.

Segmenting by gender may be effective for marketers, but is it relevant for cheese flavours? Do women really prefer goat cheese and men emmental, as this segmentation seems to indicate?

Beyond gender segmentation and stereotypes that the advertisement might convey, it is rather the inconsistency of these choices that may make consumers react.

III. (NON-)GENDERED ADVERTISING: A DILEMMA FOR MARKETERS

A. Motivations for companies to create gendered ads: marketing and economic perspective Benoit-Moreau et al. (2020, p.46) studied the strategic motivations for using gender marketing. The aim of this sub-section is to explain them by means of concrete examples. The first one is the multiequipment: for instance, if parents have a little girl and buy her a pink bib that says, "I'm a princess", they are less likely to use it for their second child if he is a little boy rather than a little girl, so they will buy another one. Does this change the usefulness of the product? Will the product be less effective on a boy? Also, will a little boy who is a few months old be embarrassed by the idea of eating with this bib? The only objective here is to make buyers consume more, which would not be the case for a gender-neutral product. The second benefit of gendered marketing strategies is that they allow price positioning to be adjusted by segment: for instance, as the stereotypical idea that women must take better care of their physical appearance than men, they may be more willing to pay a high price for body and skin care products. From the marketers' point of view, it is therefore more interesting to market two products at two different prices according to the willingness to pay to maximise purchases, and thus profits. To take it a step further, it can even allow to enter a new market: women seem to have a more positive attitude towards male-gendered products than men towards female-gendered products [START_REF] Ulrich | The relevance of multifactorial gender and its measure in marketing[END_REF]. Using the example of skincare products, marketers could segment their products by gender to convey the following message to their new target (i.e., men): "Don't worry, you won't lose your manhood with this product designed for men." Again, the composition of the product may be the same, but the image of the product will be different and will help to win over new customers.

These examples show that brands do not initially create gender advertisements to convey stereotypes, but rather to increase consumption, and therefore to make profit. This highlights the commercial challenge behind companies' use of gender marketing. However, beyond the commercial issues, are not there societal issues at stake in the use of gender marketing? What role do marketers play in fighting stereotypes?

B. Marketers' role in the fight against stereotypes: the "mould" approach

Although the initial aim of these advertisements is not to maintain stereotypes, they clearly contribute to this. This raises the following questions: is it a problem that marketing uses stereotypes, as it is not really its role to care about this? Is marketing just a reflection of society? The literature is shared on the answer to these questions: this echoes the "Mirror" vs. "Mould" theory, used in literature to discuss the relationship between advertising and values, including values about gender stereotyping [START_REF] Eisend | A meta-analysis of gender roles in advertising[END_REF][START_REF] Grau | Gender stereotypes in advertising: a review of current research[END_REF]. The "mirror" theory argues that advertising just reflects the society values: hence, it is not the role of marketers to fight these stereotypes [START_REF] Eisend | A meta-analysis of gender roles in advertising[END_REF][START_REF] Holbrook | Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, What's Unfair in the Reflections on Advertising[END_REF]. The "mould" theory argues the idea that marketing does not only reflect the society but also has a role in shaping it [START_REF] Pollay | The Distorted Mirror: Reflections on the Unintended Consequences of Advertising[END_REF]. From this perspective, marketing has a key role to play in fighting gender stereotypes. In line with the "mould" theory, [START_REF] Stevens | Representations of Femininity and Masculinity in Advertising Practices[END_REF] talk about the cultural marketing approach, suggesting that companies and marketing co-create consumers' culture with them, replacing traditional marketing approach defending that companies and culture are separate entities. Some authors, who also are the most recent papers, prefer to consider advertising somewhere in the continuum Mirror -Mould, where advertising and society influence each other [START_REF] Grau | Gender stereotypes in advertising: a review of current research[END_REF][START_REF] Tsichla | The Changing Roles of Gender in Advertising: Past, Present, and Future[END_REF]. Thus, the use of gender stereotypes in marketing is not insignificant in maintaining or even developing gender stereotypes; advertisements that do not follow stereotypical gender roles could even be a way to change gender stereotypes in consumers' minds [START_REF] Martin | Hey Siri, I love you: People feel more attached to gendered technology[END_REF]. Brands that disseminate stereotypes are accused of fully participating in their perpetuation [START_REF] Morrison | Gender-Role Congruence and Self-Referencing as Determinants of Advertising Effectiveness[END_REF]. It is therefore no longer possible to give companies a free pass and let them ignore their responsibility about their position regarding the conveyance of these stereotypes; however, is the fight against stereotypes a sufficient argument to encourage marketers to stop stereotyping, given the positive effects this seems to have from an economic and commercial perspective?

C. The emergence of gender-neutral advertising

Some brands and organisations realised the strength of the relationship between marketing and cultural values. The children's toy industry is a sector where gender stereotypes are widespread, and several measures are taken by the parties involved to reduce gender differences, as humans' social constructionand therefore the emergence of gender role behaviours -begins during childhood [START_REF] Baerlocher | Barbie® contre Action Man®! Le jouet comme objet de socialisation dans la transmission des stéréotypes de genre[END_REF]. For instance, advertising gendered toys is now prohibited in Spain [START_REF] Morteo | Sexisme : vers la fin des jouets 'genrés' en Espagne et au Danemark[END_REF]. Lego has decided to remove any gender cues from all its products, only classifying its toys by age and category [START_REF] Russell | Lego to remove gender bias from its toys after findings of child survey[END_REF]. Cosmetic and clothing brands are trying to move towards non-gendered marketing: for instance, the brand The Ordinary sells its products in neutral packages and it is impossible to determine the gender of their products. Zara also launched a unisex collection a few years ago ; however, the collection has been criticised as being just a collection of men's clothes sold to women (LSA Conso, 2016). Despite its growth in several traditionally stereotypical markets, the meaning of this move towards gender-neutral strategies is sometimes questioned.

Hence, gendered advertising was originally used for a single reason: make profit. However, cultural mores have changed since gendered advertising first appeared, and stereotypical messages that were initially commonplace and accepted in advertising now seem to be considered as an open space for the propagation of stereotypes.

CHAPTER 2 -CONSUMERS AT THE CORE OF (NON-)GENDERED ADVERTISEMENTS

Using gendered marketing strategies is therefore an economic and social dilemma for marketers.

What about consumers? Once again, the question cannot be easily answered: new trends are emerging while gender marketing continues to be omnipresent, consumers are expressing new needs, and the Internet is accentuating the expression of (dis)satisfaction. The aim of this section is to understand the link between gender and marketing from the consumer's point of view, and the implications this has for marketers.

I. GENDERED ADVERTISING AS A WAY TO SEDUCE CONSUMERS

A. The appeal of gendered marketing strategies

Various studies have shown that the use of gender in marketing positively influences consumers' attitude and behavioural intentions towards the object studied, such as packaging [START_REF] Van Tilburg | Beyond "Pink It and Shrink It" Perceived Product Gender, Aesthetics, and Product Evaluation[END_REF], brand ambassador [START_REF] Spielmann | Real Men Don't Buy "Mrs. Clean": Gender Bias in Gendered Brands[END_REF], advertisement [START_REF] Cramphorn | Gender effects in advertising[END_REF][START_REF] Subroto | The effects of gendered marketing on brand perception and purchase intention[END_REF], brand name [START_REF] Spielmann | Real Men Don't Buy "Mrs. Clean": Gender Bias in Gendered Brands[END_REF] or the product itself [START_REF] Borau | Gendered products act as the extended phenotype of human sexual dimorphism: They increase physical attractiveness and desirability[END_REF]. The field of research is therefore very varied. [START_REF] Borau | Gendered products act as the extended phenotype of human sexual dimorphism: They increase physical attractiveness and desirability[END_REF] conducted a study on the desirability of gendered products: a gendered product seems to reinforce some gendered characteristics that a person identifies with or wants to show to others, thus increasing the desirability of the product, helping the individual to assert his/her masculinity or femininity. This appears as an interesting conclusion: in a society where masculinity and femininity are no longer opposites but two independent dimensions (Zosuls et al., 2011), this desirability may raise questions about attitudes towards gendered advertising for individuals with high or low levels of both masculinity or femininity. In addition, gender cues may give the object more value. Van Tilburg et al.

(2015) have shown that gendered products have a higher aesthetic and functional value, which can reinforce desirability. As explained by [START_REF] Cramphorn | Gender effects in advertising[END_REF] in a study about advertising, people seem to be sensitive to different types of content depending on their gender. Offering gendered content to consumers would make it easier to reach them, and therefore lead to better commercial results. A study conducted by [START_REF] Subroto | The effects of gendered marketing on brand perception and purchase intention[END_REF] suggested gender stereotypes as a mediator of the relationship between gendered advertising and consumer evaluation: gender cues can activate stereotypes, which then reinforce purchase intentions. These positive attitudes towards gendered advertising can thus be a threat in the evolution of brands strategies towards less stereotyped advertising: stereotypes, since they are deeply anchored in individuals [START_REF] Légal | Stéréotypes, préjugés et discrimination. 2e éd. Les topos[END_REF], act as a real reference point in the analysis of advertising and the absence of gender cues attached to these stereotypes seems to destabilise the consumer.

B. The role of stereotypes in the relationship between gendered advertising and consumers' evaluation of the advertising

As has just been said, authors have qualified the effect that gendered advertisements seem to have on consumer evaluation, which is not always a direct relationship [START_REF] Baxter | Ads aimed at dads: exploring consumers' reactions towards advertising that conforms and challenges traditional gender role ideologies[END_REF][START_REF] Chu | The effect of non-stereotypical gender role advertising on consumer evaluation[END_REF][START_REF] Morrison | Gender-Role Congruence and Self-Referencing as Determinants of Advertising Effectiveness[END_REF][START_REF] Subroto | The effects of gendered marketing on brand perception and purchase intention[END_REF][START_REF] Ulrich | The relevance of multifactorial gender and its measure in marketing[END_REF].

Some variables regularly appear as moderators of this relationship. This is for example the case of the propensity to adhere to gender stereotypes [START_REF] Borau | The most human bot: Female gendering increases humanness perceptions of bots and acceptance of AI[END_REF][START_REF] Chu | The effect of non-stereotypical gender role advertising on consumer evaluation[END_REF][START_REF] Subroto | The effects of gendered marketing on brand perception and purchase intention[END_REF], the ideology of gender roles held by the individual [START_REF] Baxter | Ads aimed at dads: exploring consumers' reactions towards advertising that conforms and challenges traditional gender role ideologies[END_REF][START_REF] Morrison | Gender-Role Congruence and Self-Referencing as Determinants of Advertising Effectiveness[END_REF] or even masculinity and femininity [START_REF] Ulrich | The relevance of multifactorial gender and its measure in marketing[END_REF]. This therefore demonstrates the close relationship between gender stereotypes and gendered advertising: people who are close to stereotypes in their way of thinking or behaving seem to be more likely to have a positive attitude towards gendered advertisements. While in some cases the presence of this moderator "only" amplifies the relationship [START_REF] Baxter | Ads aimed at dads: exploring consumers' reactions towards advertising that conforms and challenges traditional gender role ideologies[END_REF][START_REF] Subroto | The effects of gendered marketing on brand perception and purchase intention[END_REF], other studies have shown that people close to stereotypes react positively to gendered advertisements, which was not the case for others [START_REF] Chu | The effect of non-stereotypical gender role advertising on consumer evaluation[END_REF][START_REF] Morrison | Gender-Role Congruence and Self-Referencing as Determinants of Advertising Effectiveness[END_REF][START_REF] Ulrich | The relevance of multifactorial gender and its measure in marketing[END_REF]. This is further evidence of the societal challenges associated with gender marketing, given its close link with stereotypes. More precisely, while women made no difference in their preferences, men tended to prefer the masculine version of the brands [START_REF] Spielmann | Real Men Don't Buy "Mrs. Clean": Gender Bias in Gendered Brands[END_REF]. Hence, this shows that consumers' gender could have a significant effect on the evaluation of a gendered product.

C. Gender differences in gendered products' evaluation

However, as explained by [START_REF] Ulrich | The relevance of multifactorial gender and its measure in marketing[END_REF], binary gender can be considered too narrow an approach to measuring gender preferences in advertising: to take a more holistic approach of gender, the article points out that femininity and masculinity as representations of gender have also been studied in the marketing literature to measures consumers' preference. For instance, [START_REF] Vitz | Masculinity of smokers and the masculinity of cigarette images[END_REF] have shown that more masculine smokers tended to prefer more masculine brands, no matter their gender. Hence, binary gender remains the predominant measure in marketing gender studies and should not be abandoned. However, considering gender in its binary and multidimensional approach could provide new information on consumer profiles.

II. A GROWING CONSUMER UNSATISFACTION REGARDING GENDERED ADVERTISING

A. A divergence in results

However, some studies have come to different conclusions about consumers' attitudes towards gendered advertising. While some studies showed that men and women tend to reject advertisements that do not correspond to their gender [START_REF] Borau | Gendered products act as the extended phenotype of human sexual dimorphism: They increase physical attractiveness and desirability[END_REF][START_REF] Cramphorn | Gender effects in advertising[END_REF][START_REF] Spielmann | Real Men Don't Buy "Mrs. Clean": Gender Bias in Gendered Brands[END_REF][START_REF] Subroto | The effects of gendered marketing on brand perception and purchase intention[END_REF][START_REF] Van Tilburg | Beyond "Pink It and Shrink It" Perceived Product Gender, Aesthetics, and Product Evaluation[END_REF], Akestam et al.

(2021) also presented these results, but in another context: respondents had to evaluate advertisements depicting a stereotyped image of the other gender. Both men and women presented an advertisement reactance explained by the negative influence that these advertisements may have on consumers, i.e., reinforce stereotypes and push consumers to comply with them. However, a study conducted by [START_REF] Chu | The effect of non-stereotypical gender role advertising on consumer evaluation[END_REF] has shown that although the direct effect of gendered advertisements on consumers' evaluation is ambiguous, consumers' level of stereotyping decreased after having been exposed to advertisements depicting traditional gender roles, which shows once again that marketing can help shape beliefs [START_REF] Gerbner | Living With Television: The Violence Profile[END_REF][START_REF] Pollay | The Distorted Mirror: Reflections on the Unintended Consequences of Advertising[END_REF][START_REF] Stevens | Representations of Femininity and Masculinity in Advertising Practices[END_REF][START_REF] Yoon | A femvertising campaign always #LikeAGirl: video responses and audience interactions on YouTube[END_REF]. In another study, [START_REF] Baxter | Ads aimed at dads: exploring consumers' reactions towards advertising that conforms and challenges traditional gender role ideologies[END_REF] presented males as caregivers (i.e., an idea challenging current stereotypes) in an advertising campaign to respondents: even though people with low gender role ideologies presented better evaluations, the advertisement generated globally positive evaluations. Advertising that challenges stereotypes could therefore be a good way of generating more positive attitudes among consumers [START_REF] Martin | Hey Siri, I love you: People feel more attached to gendered technology[END_REF][START_REF] Stevens | Representations of Femininity and Masculinity in Advertising Practices[END_REF]. The divergence with results showing that stereotyped advertisements reinforce brand desirability [START_REF] Borau | Gendered products act as the extended phenotype of human sexual dimorphism: They increase physical attractiveness and desirability[END_REF][START_REF] Cramphorn | Gender effects in advertising[END_REF][START_REF] Spielmann | Real Men Don't Buy "Mrs. Clean": Gender Bias in Gendered Brands[END_REF][START_REF] Van Tilburg | Beyond "Pink It and Shrink It" Perceived Product Gender, Aesthetics, and Product Evaluation[END_REF] can be explained by the message conveyed. Authors who have shown that gender has an impact on product desirability have, for example, manipulated brand identity [START_REF] Spielmann | Real Men Don't Buy "Mrs. Clean": Gender Bias in Gendered Brands[END_REF], product characteristics and appearance [START_REF] Borau | Gendered products act as the extended phenotype of human sexual dimorphism: They increase physical attractiveness and desirability[END_REF][START_REF] Van Tilburg | Beyond "Pink It and Shrink It" Perceived Product Gender, Aesthetics, and Product Evaluation[END_REF],

or advertising characteristics such as a celebrity endorsement or humour [START_REF] Cramphorn | Gender effects in advertising[END_REF].

However, the studies that have shown a negative effect of gender on the evaluation of advertising tested advertisements conveying behavioural roles, occupational stereotypes and physical characteristics to which men and women are respectively and stereotypically expected to conform (Åkestam et al., 2021), or advertisements that do not respect these standards and therefore generated very positive evaluations [START_REF] Baxter | Ads aimed at dads: exploring consumers' reactions towards advertising that conforms and challenges traditional gender role ideologies[END_REF][START_REF] Chu | The effect of non-stereotypical gender role advertising on consumer evaluation[END_REF]. Hence, advertisements that convey real gender stereotypes, in line with Deaux and Lewis' identification of the four categories of stereotypes (1984) are truly rejected in the literature. However, when it comes to more implicit gender segmentation, such as the shape of a car [START_REF] Borau | Gendered products act as the extended phenotype of human sexual dimorphism: They increase physical attractiveness and desirability[END_REF], the name of a brand [START_REF] Spielmann | Real Men Don't Buy "Mrs. Clean": Gender Bias in Gendered Brands[END_REF] or the shape of a perfume bottle [START_REF] Van Tilburg | Beyond "Pink It and Shrink It" Perceived Product Gender, Aesthetics, and Product Evaluation[END_REF], advertisements seem to be more accepted. Hence, there are many ways of doing gender marketing and these studies raise the question of whether all forms of gender marketing should be banned.

B. People's fight against gendered marketing practices on social medias

Reactance to an advertising or marketing campaign is no longer simply psychological: the Internet has become an excellent way for consumers to voice their dissatisfaction [START_REF] Åkestam | Advertising "like a girl": Toward a better understanding of "femvertising" and its effects[END_REF][START_REF] Vadakkepatt | Can advertising benefit women's development? Preliminary insights from a multi-method investigation[END_REF]. Among the major content creators tackling gender stereotypes on social medias is @PepiteSexiste, an association fighting sexism in marketing practices. On its social networks, the association mainly shares photos of marketing practices judged as "sexist" that can be seen in public displays, in supermarkets, in advertisements, in books. More generally, it is about the content to which consumers are constantly exposed. The association's objective is twofold: to raise consumers' awareness about those practices, but also to raise companies' awareness to make them change their strategies. Looking at the content offered by the association on social networks, its strength seems to be engagement. With nearly 400,000 followers, the content is co-created with users: the association centralises and shares photos showing sexist marketing practices sent directly by users. The association's community is therefore proactive in the fight against gender stereotypes.

This even leads people to express their dissatisfaction through their screens. By typing "@PepiteSexiste" into the Twitter search bar, many Tweets appear every day where users complain about sexist marketing practices they have seen in their daily lives and take the opportunity to tag @PepiteSexiste account to get the message across to as many people as possible. Their community is committed to fighting against gender stereotypes in marketing as widely as possible, and the results seem to be quite conclusive: many brands targeted by this content contacted the association to provide explanations and to explain what they will change to stop propagating these stereotypes. As said by the association on its website:

« […]
Nous ne sommes pas l'ennemie des marques mais leur alliée vers plus de modernité ! » (We are not the enemy of brands but their ally towards more modernity)

The divergence of research findings on gender stereotypes is illustrated on social medias by the divergence of users' opinions: some criticise @pepitesexiste saying that some of the pictures they share only reinforce stereotypes. Recently on Instagram, for example, the account shared a post of 2 Decathlon backpacks, pink and blue respectively, and were reacting to the price of the pink bag being higher than the blue. However, it was indicated that both bags were unisex, which caused a misunderstanding among users: doesn't talking about sexism based solely on colours, when the product is labelled as unisex, reinforce stereotypes? As explained above, advertisements featuring sexist behaviours and physical criteria to which men and women should adhere to be desirable are criticised [START_REF] Åkestam | Gender stereotypes in advertising have negative cross-gender effects[END_REF][START_REF] Baxter | Ads aimed at dads: exploring consumers' reactions towards advertising that conforms and challenges traditional gender role ideologies[END_REF][START_REF] Chu | The effect of non-stereotypical gender role advertising on consumer evaluation[END_REF], but this is more delicate for brands that play on colours and shapes: ultimately, can we accuse a pink package or a rounded perfume bottle of conveying stereotypes about women? Isn't it rather the way this kind of advertisements are interpreted that transmits stereotypes? Once again, this raises questions about the societal implications of gender marketing.

C. Consumers' expectations about non-gendered marketing and opportunities for marketers

Current literature has focused mainly on gendered marketing [START_REF] Baxter | Ads aimed at dads: exploring consumers' reactions towards advertising that conforms and challenges traditional gender role ideologies[END_REF][START_REF] Borau | Gendered products act as the extended phenotype of human sexual dimorphism: They increase physical attractiveness and desirability[END_REF][START_REF] Chu | The effect of non-stereotypical gender role advertising on consumer evaluation[END_REF][START_REF] Cramphorn | Gender effects in advertising[END_REF][START_REF] Morrison | Gender-Role Congruence and Self-Referencing as Determinants of Advertising Effectiveness[END_REF][START_REF] Spielmann | Real Men Don't Buy "Mrs. Clean": Gender Bias in Gendered Brands[END_REF][START_REF] Subroto | The effects of gendered marketing on brand perception and purchase intention[END_REF][START_REF] Ulrich | The relevance of multifactorial gender and its measure in marketing[END_REF][START_REF] Van Tilburg | Beyond "Pink It and Shrink It" Perceived Product Gender, Aesthetics, and Product Evaluation[END_REF], leaving out the perception of gender-neutral marketing as the main object of study. Some studies have looked at consumers' evaluations towards unisex products: most of them are about apparel in fashion literature, while only few of them are in marketing literature [START_REF] Bhanja | It is better with a shade of blue! Consumer evaluation of unisex extension of brands[END_REF][START_REF] Markham | An international study of unisex and "same-name" fragrance brands[END_REF], with one about apparel market [START_REF] Bhanja | It is better with a shade of blue! Consumer evaluation of unisex extension of brands[END_REF]) and one about fragrance market [START_REF] Markham | An international study of unisex and "same-name" fragrance brands[END_REF]. More than 20 years separate these two studies. In the Markham and Cangelosi's study on perfumes (1999), which was conducted solely on a female population, we can see that only half the respondents were familiar with the meaning of a unisex perfume, and among them, only half were in favour. The study conducted by [START_REF] Bhanja | It is better with a shade of blue! Consumer evaluation of unisex extension of brands[END_REF] focused on brand extension. In this context, this corresponds to the appearance of new unisex products and collections by a brand initially identified as feminine or masculine. In contrast to the study about fragrances [START_REF] Markham | An international study of unisex and "same-name" fragrance brands[END_REF], respondents showed a more positive attitude towards initially gendered brand extensions going unisex, with women in particular showing a more positive attitude than men [START_REF] Bhanja | It is better with a shade of blue! Consumer evaluation of unisex extension of brands[END_REF]. These results are in line with other studies showing that women have a more negative attitude towards gendered brands [START_REF] Spielmann | Real Men Don't Buy "Mrs. Clean": Gender Bias in Gendered Brands[END_REF][START_REF] Ulrich | The relevance of multifactorial gender and its measure in marketing[END_REF]. More generally, brands that promote gender stereotypes are becoming less and less accepted [START_REF] Åkestam | Gender stereotypes in advertising have negative cross-gender effects[END_REF][START_REF] Baxter | Ads aimed at dads: exploring consumers' reactions towards advertising that conforms and challenges traditional gender role ideologies[END_REF][START_REF] Chu | The effect of non-stereotypical gender role advertising on consumer evaluation[END_REF], allowing unisex to become increasingly popular over time [START_REF] Bhanja | It is better with a shade of blue! Consumer evaluation of unisex extension of brands[END_REF][START_REF] Markham | An international study of unisex and "same-name" fragrance brands[END_REF]. A study carried out by CSA [START_REF] Gaillot | Les français et le genre : vers la disparition de la notion de genre ? Consumer Science & Analytics[END_REF] shows that consumers particularly expect brands to be less gendered in areas where advertising is particularly stereotyped, such as the car market (59% of consumers) or children's toys market (60% of consumers). For markets that are systematically confronted with stereotypes, such as toys or cars, the challenge of ending stereotypes is therefore essential, both in terms of business and societal values.

III. THE EMERGENCE OF "FEMVERTISING" AND ITS IMPACT ON CONSUMERS

A. Defining femvertising

The image of women in advertising has been evolving for decades [START_REF] Åkestam | Gender stereotypes in advertising have negative cross-gender effects[END_REF][START_REF] Eisend | A meta-analysis of gender roles in advertising[END_REF]. The most frequently used definition of femvertising in literature and medias [START_REF] Åkestam | Gender stereotypes in advertising have negative cross-gender effects[END_REF][START_REF] Hainneville | Femvertising or femwashing? Women's perceptions of authenticity[END_REF]Media Marketing, 2019;[START_REF] Yoon | A femvertising campaign always #LikeAGirl: video responses and audience interactions on YouTube[END_REF] is the one from SheKnows, a media specialised in women empowerment which rewarded in 2014 the companies that produced the best femvertising campaigns, challenging the recurring gender stereotypes in advertising [START_REF] Powell | How Ads That Empower Women Are Boosting Sales and Bettering the Industry[END_REF]. SheKnows defines femvertising as "advertising that employs pro-female talent, messages and imagery to empower women and girls" (Skey, 2015). Femvertising is a growing marketing trend [START_REF] Feng | Consumer Responses to Femvertising: A Data-Mining Case of Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty" on YouTube[END_REF][START_REF] Kapoor | Self-consciousness and emotions driving femvertising: A path analysis of women's attitude towards femvertising, forwarding intention and purchase intention[END_REF]) that challenges stereotypes (Åkestam et al., 2017). One of the campaigns considered to be among the pioneers of femvertising is the Dove "Campaign for Real Beauty", launched in 2004 but persisting through the years. A series of videos have been produced over the years, including the most popular, "You're more beautiful than you think" 6 , which has been viewed over 70 million times on the platform. In this video, women describe themselves to an artist who does not see them but draws them based on their description. These women then meet other people and talk to them for a few minutes. Then, it is the turn of these people to describe the woman they have just talked to. Women's descriptions were much more positive when given by an outsider than when they described themselves. This video fits in perfectly with the femvertising movement, trying to empower women and give them self-confidence. Dove campaign has been studied many times in literature [START_REF] Åkestam | Advertising "like a girl": Toward a better understanding of "femvertising" and its effects[END_REF][START_REF] Feng | Consumer Responses to Femvertising: A Data-Mining Case of Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty" on YouTube[END_REF][START_REF] Hainneville | Femvertising or femwashing? Women's perceptions of authenticity[END_REF][START_REF] Vadakkepatt | Can advertising benefit women's development? Preliminary insights from a multi-method investigation[END_REF][START_REF] Yoon | A femvertising campaign always #LikeAGirl: video responses and audience interactions on YouTube[END_REF], sometimes simply taken as an example [START_REF] Åkestam | Advertising "like a girl": Toward a better understanding of "femvertising" and its effects[END_REF][START_REF] Yoon | A femvertising campaign always #LikeAGirl: video responses and audience interactions on YouTube[END_REF], but has also been the subject of various studies, such as the analysis of YouTube comments on Dove campaign videos [START_REF] Feng | Consumer Responses to Femvertising: A Data-Mining Case of Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty" on YouTube[END_REF][START_REF] Vadakkepatt | Can advertising benefit women's development? Preliminary insights from a multi-method investigation[END_REF] and qualitative interviews on consumers' perceptions of this campaign [START_REF] Hainneville | Femvertising or femwashing? Women's perceptions of authenticity[END_REF].

B. Consumers' evaluation of femvertising movements

6 https://youtu.be/XpaOjMXyJGk (consulted on: June 3, 2023) The results of the studies carried out on the Dove campaign showed quite positive evaluations of consumers. [START_REF] Feng | Consumer Responses to Femvertising: A Data-Mining Case of Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty" on YouTube[END_REF] studied the 21,000 public comments in English on Dove campaign videos published before August 2018. The most recurrent themes in the comments were "definition of beauty" (35.71%) and "praise of the ad" (35.33%). The second analysis of the comments carried out by [START_REF] Vadakkepatt | Can advertising benefit women's development? Preliminary insights from a multi-method investigation[END_REF] also found that many users identified with these women and were aware of the importance of empowering and helping others to be able to do so on oneself. [START_REF] Yoon | A femvertising campaign always #LikeAGirl: video responses and audience interactions on YouTube[END_REF] explain this through cultivation theory. Cultivation theory, presented by [START_REF] Gerbner | Living With Television: The Violence Profile[END_REF], states that the media and advertising "cultivate" social norms, beliefs and values (cited in [START_REF] Yoon | A femvertising campaign always #LikeAGirl: video responses and audience interactions on YouTube[END_REF], in line with the "mould" theory [START_REF] Pollay | The Distorted Mirror: Reflections on the Unintended Consequences of Advertising[END_REF][START_REF] Stevens | Representations of Femininity and Masculinity in Advertising Practices[END_REF].

According to a an Ipsos survey administrated to 17000 respondents [START_REF] Lacey | Advertising is Out of Sync with World's Consumers. Ipsos[END_REF], 76% of respondents think that advertising has the power to shape people perceptions about others and themselves. Thus, campaigns such as this one are a means of changing the norms attached to beauty standards, and more generally the image of stereotypical women [START_REF] Yoon | A femvertising campaign always #LikeAGirl: video responses and audience interactions on YouTube[END_REF]Lee, 2021. Skey, 2015).

This also shows that marketers can change norms with this type of campaign, or at least get consumers thinking about the issues surrounding societal norms. [START_REF] Gerbner | Living With Television: The Violence Profile[END_REF][START_REF] Pollay | The Distorted Mirror: Reflections on the Unintended Consequences of Advertising[END_REF]Sken, 2015;[START_REF] Stevens | Representations of Femininity and Masculinity in Advertising Practices[END_REF][START_REF] Vadakkepatt | Can advertising benefit women's development? Preliminary insights from a multi-method investigation[END_REF][START_REF] Yoon | A femvertising campaign always #LikeAGirl: video responses and audience interactions on YouTube[END_REF]. As with campaigns aimed at fighting stereotypes, such as the one run by @PepiteSexiste, this kind of campaign also shows just how viral social networks can be in encouraging people to express themselves and build a collective movement around societal subjects, as gender stereotypes or women's empowerment. These results echo those of two studies that compared the reaction of female consumers to advertisements belonging to the femvertising movement (vs. advertisements presenting stereotypes) [START_REF] Åkestam | Advertising "like a girl": Toward a better understanding of "femvertising" and its effects[END_REF][START_REF] Vadakkepatt | Can advertising benefit women's development? Preliminary insights from a multi-method investigation[END_REF], confirming that psychological reactance to advertising is significantly lower when it is femvertising, leading to more positive attitudes. With the Internet, reactance is not just psychological: these online campaigns make it possible to gather the feelings of users, who are much more likely to express their (dis)satisfaction [START_REF] Vadakkepatt | Can advertising benefit women's development? Preliminary insights from a multi-method investigation[END_REF]. Hence, campaigns such as femvertising therefore appear as an excellent way of reaching consumers, and therefore of "moulding" them to change their stereotypical beliefs.

C. A discourse that is not always consistent

However, femvertising campaigns have also been at the heart of controversy, particularly about their authenticity. Analysis of the qualitative interviews conducted by [START_REF] Hainneville | Femvertising or femwashing? Women's perceptions of authenticity[END_REF] shows that authenticity is, regarding consumers, what differentiates femvertising from femwashing which, like greenwashing, consists of claiming to support women's empowerment and gender equality in order to give the company a more positive image, without really considering the problem [START_REF] Vincent | La mode du « féminisme washing » atteint les entreprises[END_REF].

The analysis of the comments on the Dove campaign's YouTube videos showed that some consumers remain sceptical [START_REF] Feng | Consumer Responses to Femvertising: A Data-Mining Case of Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty" on YouTube[END_REF], with 10.53% of comments on this theme, and some users questioning this way of empowering women [START_REF] Vadakkepatt | Can advertising benefit women's development? Preliminary insights from a multi-method investigation[END_REF]. Some consumers have criticised this approach as it comes from Unilever, the parent brand of Dove: Unilever also owns Axe, a brand of cosmetics and hygiene products that promote various gender stereotypes (Media Marketing, 2019). Marketers' discourse is sometimes considered to be inconsistent: however, the literature also highlights the inconsistency of consumer discourse [START_REF] Borau | No gender, body positivisme : le « femvertising » bouscule-t-il vraiment les codes du genre ? The Conversation, 3 March[END_REF]: consumers are advocating new beauty standards and a return to naturalness, but the majority continues to adhere to traditional beauty standards: if gendered advertisements continue to exist, could it be because consumers are not ready to change their stereotypical norms about gender? Once again, this comes back to the "mirror" vs. "mould" debate: is advertising just a reflection of society [START_REF] Eisend | A meta-analysis of gender roles in advertising[END_REF][START_REF] Holbrook | Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, What's Unfair in the Reflections on Advertising[END_REF], or does it have the power to change it [START_REF] Pollay | The Distorted Mirror: Reflections on the Unintended Consequences of Advertising[END_REF][START_REF] Stevens | Representations of Femininity and Masculinity in Advertising Practices[END_REF][START_REF] Vadakkepatt | Can advertising benefit women's development? Preliminary insights from a multi-method investigation[END_REF][START_REF] Yoon | A femvertising campaign always #LikeAGirl: video responses and audience interactions on YouTube[END_REF]Skey, 2015)? The relationship between stereotypes and advertising is therefore complex, and probably two-way: marketers and consumers need to act together, and not wait passively for the other to act, to fight gender stereotypes.

PART 2 -QUANTITATIVE STUDY identity to others [START_REF] Escalas | You Are What They Eat: The Influence of Reference Groups on Consumers' Connections to Brands[END_REF][START_REF] Sicilia | The need to belong and self-disclosure in positive word-of-mouth behaviours: The moderating effect of self-brand connection[END_REF], and they can even consider a brand as part of their self-identity [START_REF] Helme-Guizon | Consumer brand engagement and its social side on brandhosted social media: how do they contribute to brand loyalty[END_REF]. This encourages them to choose brands that make sense to them [START_REF] Fazli-Salehi | Multicultural advertising: The impact of consumers' self-concept clarity and materialism on self-brand connection and communal-brand connection[END_REF]. Hence, when the consumer's image is associated with the brand's one, this might create a strong self-brand connection [START_REF] Sarkar | Impact of self-brand connection on willingness to pay premium: Relevant mediators and moderators[END_REF]. This also means that when the brand image is tarnished, the self-brand connection can be a way of protecting the brand's relationship with the consumer [START_REF] Gaustad | The perils of self-brand connections: Consumer response to changes in brand meaning[END_REF]: this could protect brands from certain controversies such as those linked to gender stereotypes. Moreover, self-brand connection seems to be an important driver of word-of-mouth intentions [START_REF] Sicilia | The need to belong and self-disclosure in positive word-of-mouth behaviours: The moderating effect of self-brand connection[END_REF], purchase intentions [START_REF] Fazli-Salehi | Multicultural advertising: The impact of consumers' self-concept clarity and materialism on self-brand connection and communal-brand connection[END_REF][START_REF] Ma | Does 'chicken soup for the soul' on the product packaging work? The mediating role of perceived warmth and self-brand connection[END_REF] or willingness to pay [START_REF] Sarkar | Impact of self-brand connection on willingness to pay premium: Relevant mediators and moderators[END_REF]. Hence, the mediating effect of self-brand connection on the relationship between (non-)gendered advertisements and behavioural intentions presents an interest to be studied.

Behavioural intentions

According to Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior (1991), behavioural intention refers to "the motivational factors that influence a behavior; they are indications of how hard people are willing to try, of how much of an effort they are planning to exert, in order to perform the behavior". It is therefore the antecedent of the behaviour resulting from the attitude towards the behaviour, subjective norms, and the perceived control to perform the behaviour, as summarised in this diagram: Behavioural intentions towards a product or brand can be varied. This study considered purchase intentions (PI), word-of-mouth intentions (WOMI) and willingness to pay (WTP), as they all seem to be consequences of SBC [START_REF] Fazli-Salehi | Multicultural advertising: The impact of consumers' self-concept clarity and materialism on self-brand connection and communal-brand connection[END_REF][START_REF] Ma | Does 'chicken soup for the soul' on the product packaging work? The mediating role of perceived warmth and self-brand connection[END_REF][START_REF] Sarkar | Impact of self-brand connection on willingness to pay premium: Relevant mediators and moderators[END_REF][START_REF] Sicilia | The need to belong and self-disclosure in positive word-of-mouth behaviours: The moderating effect of self-brand connection[END_REF]. For the purposes of this study, the measure of PI has been used to assess whether gendered packaging can influence the consumers' intentions to buy the product. The measure WOMI has shown whether gendered packaging can influence the discourse that consumers will have towards the brand. Finally, WTP is an amount, and this indicator measured whether the perceived monetary value changed depending on whether the package was gendered.

Gender

Some authors had shown that consumers' gender influences their perception of gendered advertising [START_REF] Spielmann | Real Men Don't Buy "Mrs. Clean": Gender Bias in Gendered Brands[END_REF][START_REF] Ulrich | The relevance of multifactorial gender and its measure in marketing[END_REF]. The moderating effect of gender was therefore tested.

Masculinity & Femininity score

In a plural and evolving approach to gender, the participants' masculinity and femininity were assessed with two objectives in mind. The first was to understand the relationship between the gender with which participants identify and their score of masculinity/femininity. The second was to test the moderating effect of masculinity/femininity on the relationship between the presentation of gendered packaging and self/brand connection.

C. Research model and hypotheses

Hence, here are the hypotheses tested:

II. METHODOLOGY

A. Stimulus development

The stimulus selected for this study was a package for a fictitious brand of aperitif cheeses, referring to the Apéricube cheese brand that offered a gendered range of products a few years ago [START_REF] Gourion | Marketing genré et sexisme: le top 10 des produits «pour femmes» les plus étranges[END_REF]. Cheese also appeared as a good product because it is perceived as unisex, unlike meat, which is considered as masculine, or chocolate, which is considered as feminine [START_REF] Velikova | Meat is male; Champagne is female; Cheese is unisex: An examination of perceived gender images of wine[END_REF]. It therefore offers something new compared to previous studies on gender-neutral marketing, based on products that are frequently studied in relation to gender issues, such as fragrances [START_REF] Markham | An international study of unisex and "same-name" fragrance brands[END_REF] or apparel [START_REF] Bhanja | It is better with a shade of blue! Consumer evaluation of unisex extension of brands[END_REF]. According to [START_REF] Jonveaux | Un construit économique ? Produits de consommation et différentiation de genre. Le cas des gels douche[END_REF], there are three categories of gendered products: physiologically gendered products, such as sanitary protection, where segmentation by gender is relevant because the product meets the physiological needs of one of the sexes. Then, there are gendered products, such as clothing, whose cuts are designed to match the respective morphologies of men and women, but whose gendered consumption remains governed by society, such as skirts. Finally, there are economically gendered products, where the product is exactly the same whatever the gender it is aimed at, and where the consumer's motivation for choosing the product is simply to reinforce his or her gender identity. Hence, studies on unisex products have mainly focused on gendered products [START_REF] Bhanja | It is better with a shade of blue! Consumer evaluation of unisex extension of brands[END_REF][START_REF] Markham | An international study of unisex and "same-name" fragrance brands[END_REF], but this study looks at an economically gendered product: gender cues are the only element manipulated on the packaging, with the characteristics of the cheese such as flavour or nutritional value being the same for male and female packages. Packaging had been chosen as the stimuli for its important role in advertising the product [START_REF] Rundh | The multi-faceted dimension of packaging: Marketing logistic or marketing tool? British Food Journal[END_REF]. Three types of packages had been created: a neutral package, a gendered package for women and a gendered package for men. Gender was manipulated through the visual characteristics of the package, i.e., the colours, the motif, and the slogan. Colours chosen were respectively orange, pink, and blue. These colours had been chosen according to the Western Europe vision about colours: orange is considered as a gender-neutral colour, while pink and blue are the stereotypical colours for respectively women and men [START_REF] Bideaux | Millennial pink: gender, feminism and marketing. A critical Analysis of a color trend[END_REF]. The slogan "Soirée entre amis" ("Friends' night out") had been assigned to gender-neutral package, while the slogans "Soirée entre filles" ("Girls' night out") and "Soirée entre mecs" ("Guys' night out") had been respectively assigned to female-gendered and male-gendered packages. Since only women saw the genderedfemale package, and the same was true for men, they were aware that they were the target of the product given the slogan, without having to interpret that the product was aimed at women or men only by means of a colour or a shape, as it was the case for previous studies [START_REF] Borau | Gendered products act as the extended phenotype of human sexual dimorphism: They increase physical attractiveness and desirability[END_REF][START_REF] Cramphorn | Gender effects in advertising[END_REF][START_REF] Spielmann | Real Men Don't Buy "Mrs. Clean": Gender Bias in Gendered Brands[END_REF][START_REF] Van Tilburg | Beyond "Pink It and Shrink It" Perceived Product Gender, Aesthetics, and Product Evaluation[END_REF]. The three packages are available in Appendix 1.

A pre-test was carried out on 17 people to ascertain the perceived gender of the packages.

Package number 1 was evaluated as significantly more masculine (Mpackaging1= 6.88) than package 2 (Mpackage2= 1.06, p < 0.01) and 3 (Mpackage3= 4.53, p < 0.01). Package number 2 was evaluated as significantly more feminine (Mpackage2= 6.94) than package 1 (Mpackage1= 1.18, p < 0.01) and 3 (Mpackage3= 4.18, p < 0.01). Package number 3 was evaluated as significantly more gender-neutral (Mpackage3= 6.65) than package 1 (Mpackage1= 3.29, p < 0.01) and 2 (Mpackage2= 3.12, p < 0.01). Statistical analyses for the pre-test are provided in Appendix 2.

B. Procedure

247 French participants agreed to take part in this study and 243 duly completed the questionnaire (75 men, 166 women, 2 people who did not specify). The questionnaire was sent to participants via LinkedIn, Survey Circle, Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp. There was no financial reward for taking part, but participants were informed that ten cents would be donated to an association for each duly completed questionnaire. Participants first had to give their consent by means of an ethics form. The questionnaire was then divided into two parts. Firstly, participants were asked to self-assess various character traits stereotypically associated with men (e.g., I am aggressive) and women (e.g., I am sensitive to others' needs). They then indicated their gender.

People who identified themselves as women were randomly assigned to the female or neutral package, while people who identified themselves as men were randomly assigned to the male or neutral package. People who identified themselves as neither male nor female were automatically assigned to the neutral package. After viewing the assigned package for several seconds, the dependent variables were measured. Finally, the participants were thanked and given the opportunity to leave their e-mails to find out more about the results of the study and the final sum donated to the association. Those who let their e-mail addresses were also informed of the real purpose of the study, which had to be concealed from participants so as not to bias the results.

Participants were told that it was a study about the effect of personality on packaging perception.

C. Measures

In the first part of the questionnaire, participants were asked to assess their masculinity and femininity. The items selected to measure masculinity (i.e., powerful, ambitious, dominant) and femininity (i.e., compassionate, warm, gentle) are the ones from the Gender Trait Index [START_REF] Barak | Sex-Linked Trait Indexes Among Baby-Boomers and Pre-Boomers: A Research Note[END_REF], a shortened version of the Bem Sex Role Inventory [START_REF] Bem | The measurement of psychological androgyny[END_REF], one of the first scales to consider masculinity and femininity as two distinct dimensions (Benoit-Moreau, 2020, p.24), positioning individuals as masculine, feminine, androgynous or undifferentiated. These four positioning quadrants were used in this work, where individuals are classified according to their femininity and masculinity scores in relation to the group median. Initially, the BSRI has 20 items for masculinity and 20 items for femininity. To avoid making the questionnaire too long, the GTI has been chosen as it is widely used in literature, even in marketing as an antecedent of purchase decisions [START_REF] Pinna | Do gender identities of femininity and masculinity affect the intention to buy ethical products?[END_REF]. Hence, the masculinity and femininity of respondents were each measured on a 10-item scale. Self-brand connection scale has been adapted from [START_REF] Escalas | You Are What They Eat: The Influence of Reference Groups on Consumers' Connections to Brands[END_REF], who measured the connection between the self and the brand as part of the evaluation of a food brand. In the present study, this 5-item scale measures respondents' self-connection with the product. To measure purchase intentions, a 3-item scale developed by [START_REF] Baker | The Impact of Physically Attractive Models on Advertising Evaluations[END_REF] (cited in [START_REF] Park | David and Goliath: When and Why Micro-Influencers Are More Persuasive Than Mega-Influencers[END_REF] for a study about advertising has been used for this study, as packaging is also an element of advertising [START_REF] Rundh | The multi-faceted dimension of packaging: Marketing logistic or marketing tool? British Food Journal[END_REF]. Word-of-mouth intentions have been measured using a 2-item scale adapted from [START_REF] Brüggen | Extreme Makeover: Short-and Long-Term Effects of a Remodeled Servicescape[END_REF](cited in De Keyser et al., 2017). All these items were measured on 7-point scales. Willingness to pay has been measured using only one item ("How much would you be willing to pay for this product?"). For this item, participants have indicated a numerical value from zero to ten representing the price they would be willing to pay for the product. All the scales with their items and Cronbach's Alpha are available in Appendix 3.

CHAPTER 4 -ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

Results

All the analyses have been conducted on SPSS. An independence t-test found a significant effect of the type of advertisement (gendered vs. not) on purchase intentions and word-of-mouth intentions. The non-gendered packaging condition resulted in higher purchase intentions (Mnon-gendered = 10.68 vs. Mgendered = 9.09, p = 0.01) and word-of-mouth intentions (Mnon-gendered = 7.65 vs. Mgendered = 6.19, p < 0.01) compared to the gendered packaging condition, thus confirming H1a, H1b. However, no significative difference has been found between the non-gendered condition and gendered condition for willingness to pay (Mnon-gendered = 3.03 vs. Mgendered = 2.98, p = 0.86). Hence, H1c should be rejected. A t-test analysis found a significant effect of type of advertisement (gendered vs. not) on self-brand connection (Mnon-gendered = 15.51 vs. Mgendered = 14.75, p < 0.01). Respondents indicated a greater self-brand connection in the non-gendered packaging condition compared to the gendered packaging condition, confirming H2. Moreover, a linear regression has shown that self-brand connection is an explanatory factor of purchase intentions (R 2 = 0.532, p < 0.01), word-of-mouth intentions (R 2 = 0.449, p < 0.01), and willingness to pay (R 2 = 0.163, p < 0.01), confirming H3a, H3b and H3c. This also means that self-brand connection fully mediates the relationship between the type of advertisement (gendered vs. not) and willingness to pay, while it partly mediates the relationships between the type of advertisement and purchase intentions, and between the type of advertisement and word-of-mouth intentions. However, there is no significant difference between genders regarding self-brand connection neither in the condition of a gendered package (Mfemale =

Gender and masculinity / femininity

An independence t-test has also been conducted to determine the effect of gender on perceived masculinity and femininity. Gender influences perceived femininity, with women judging themselves to be significantly more feminine than men (Mfemale = 57.51 vs. Mmale = 55.04, p = 0.04).

The same was true for men, who judged themselves to be significantly more masculine than women

GENERAL DISCUSSION

The notion of gender has evolved over time: gone are the days when the measure of gender was consensually recognised as being the assessment of femininity and masculinity on the same continuum (Benoit-Moreau, 2020, p22.;[START_REF] Jones | Measuring gender in consumer research: Validity and consumer welfare[END_REF]Zosuls et al., 2011). The literature now seems to converge on the idea of gender as a cultural and social construct, as opposed to sex, which appears to be the biological identity assigned to us at birth (Oakley, 1972, p.158). This cultural and social construct is therefore at the very origin of the social roles expected of men and women, thus at the genesis of stereotypes. Advertising has been an open space for stereotypes for many years, raising questions about the close relationship between gender stereotypes and advertising. The evolution of gender and its impact on consumer identity is leading marketers to reconsider their gender segmentation strategies. At the same time, several movements are emerging to fight gender stereotypes. For instance, "femvertising" aims to offer advertising campaigns that challenge stereotypes about women [START_REF] Åkestam | Advertising "like a girl": Toward a better understanding of "femvertising" and its effects[END_REF][START_REF] Feng | Consumer Responses to Femvertising: A Data-Mining Case of Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty" on YouTube[END_REF][START_REF] Hainneville | Femvertising or femwashing? Women's perceptions of authenticity[END_REF][START_REF] Kapoor | Self-consciousness and emotions driving femvertising: A path analysis of women's attitude towards femvertising, forwarding intention and purchase intention[END_REF][START_REF] Vadakkepatt | Can advertising benefit women's development? Preliminary insights from a multi-method investigation[END_REF][START_REF] Yoon | A femvertising campaign always #LikeAGirl: video responses and audience interactions on YouTube[END_REF]. The Internet has also enabled greater expression of dissatisfaction towards the gender stereotypes conveyed by advertising [START_REF] Åkestam | Advertising "like a girl": Toward a better understanding of "femvertising" and its effects[END_REF][START_REF] Vadakkepatt | Can advertising benefit women's development? Preliminary insights from a multi-method investigation[END_REF], with online communities fighting these stereotypes.

In a world that is gradually becoming non-binary and where the fight against stereotypes seems to be at its height, does gendered marketing still have a place? This study provides data on the essential role of the self-brand connection in the relationship between a brand and its consumers. Consumers who feel connected to the brand seem to show more behavioural intentions towards it, whether in terms of purchase intentions, positive word-of-mouth intentions, or the willingness to pay more, which reinforces the importance for a brand of getting to know its consumers and sharing with them to create that connection. However, the study seems to show that consumers feel less of a connection with the brand when the package proposed is gendered, which may be explained by the reactance of consumers to gender marketing with the emergence of social movements such as @PepiteSexiste, but also when considering that gender is seen as less and less important in defining identity [START_REF] Laughlin | Gen Z goes beyond gender binaries in new Innovation Group data[END_REF]. The direct effect of the relationship between package type and behavioural intentions has also been observed: gendered packaging leads to less purchase intentions and less positive word-of-mouth intentions, in line with previous studies about gender in marketing [START_REF] Åkestam | Gender stereotypes in advertising have negative cross-gender effects[END_REF][START_REF] Baxter | Ads aimed at dads: exploring consumers' reactions towards advertising that conforms and challenges traditional gender role ideologies[END_REF][START_REF] Chu | The effect of non-stereotypical gender role advertising on consumer evaluation[END_REF]. However, some studies have shown divergent results. As explained above, the type of stimulus used could explain this discrepancy. The stimulus proposed in this study is between the two camps. The results here seem to add another element to the literature: when packaging conveys degrading stereotypes, as the literature has shown, or clearly states the gender for which the product is targeted, as this study shows, consumers seem to react negatively to gendered advertising. This is not the case when a gender is implicitly suggested, particularly through colours or shapes. Hence, can we speak of a harmful practice when gendering is not explicit and simply manipulated by a colour or a shape? In this situation, does the stereotype reside in the characteristic of the product or in the interpretation that is made of it? Is not accusing a brand of sexism because the pink bag in a range of unisex bags is more expensive than the blue one part of the stereotyping process? Once again, this raises questions about the role of advertising in fighting gender stereotypes. Does advertising mirror gender stereotypes or is it the mould that forges them? As a lot of questions in research, the answer is certainly not in either extreme. Marketers use gender when marketing products because this segmentation show good sales results, consumers buy because they are encouraged to by marketing. Consumers continue to conform to gender stereotypes, marketers continue to use stereotypes to sell. Deconstructing stereotypes is a difficult task that consumers and marketers must achieve side by side.

Moreover, this study focused on the situation where the gender targeted by the product is congruent with the gender of the respondent. This indicates a failure of the brand to attract the target for which it was initially designed. The main explanation for these results could be that, in the context of a product judged as unisex such as cheese [START_REF] Velikova | Meat is male; Champagne is female; Cheese is unisex: An examination of perceived gender images of wine[END_REF], gendering it does not present any benefit and make consumers feel manipulated by the stereotypes conveyed by the brand. It also has the negative effect of concealing the product's attractive characteristics such as taste, quality or provenance, a problem identified by a Mintel's market study about gendered food [START_REF] Mogelonsky | It's time to look beyond 'gendered' food and drink[END_REF]. This shows that, depending on the field of application, gender marketing can be a commercial mistake as well as a societal one. Finally, no difference has been found between genders on behavioural intentions towards the packaging, neither in the binary measure nor the multidimensional one, in line with most articles in the gender marketing literature, which have measured the gender of the consumer as a control variable.

Theoretical implications

This study provides additional insights into the perception of gendered advertising elements and illustrates the complexity of gender in advertising. Most previous studies have focused on products whose gendering has been debated for decades, such as toys, fragrances, or cars. The present study is one of the few to focus on a product for which gendering may seem more unexpected, i.e., cheese, and thus provides results on the potential effects of gender segmentation for this type of industry. In addition, this study proposes two measures of gender as moderators of the relationship between package type and self-brand connection: declarative gender on the one hand, and masculinity and femininity scores on the other. For gender studies, masculinity and femininity scores may be interesting variables to control; even though declarative gender seems to have an influence on this score, it might be a variable providing other insights on consumer identity and preferences.

Managerial implications

These results show that gender must be used carefully as part of a marketing strategy.

Marketers can no longer ignore their role in the formation and maintenance of these stereotypes.

However, it is no longer enough to avoid stereotypes to fight them: it is essential that brands think about new strategies to challenge the codes. Not selling pink products will not help combat stereotypes. Selling pink products -just as you would sell blue, green, yellow or any other colour of product -and communicating the features and benefits of the product without targeting a particular gender will. This study also shows the importance of the connection that is created between consumers. It is therefore essential for companies to cooperate with their consumers to make their business more impactful: a commercial impact with better behavioural intentions, and a societal impact with the fight against stereotypes working side by side with consumers.

Limitations and suggestions for further research

However, this research has its limitations, which highlights interesting potential avenues for further research. Firstly, a few methodological points should be discussed. The sample used was made up of more women than men (68% women / 31% men / 1% didn't want to specify), which could potentially be explained by the fact that respondents were informed that 10 cents per respondent was being donated to an association fighting violence against women, a cause to which women are potentially more susceptible than men, who were therefore more likely to respond.

Additionally, 63% of participants were under the age of 26. Future research could be carried out on other populations, as believes about gender identity seems to be different [START_REF] Brown | About 5% of young adults in the U.S. say their gender is different from their sex assigned at birth[END_REF]. Some ethical issues need to be addressed too: the questionnaire was conducted using Google Forms, which is not optimal in terms of data collection. Moreover, given the possibility offered by Google Forms of going back, not all participants were debriefed on the real purpose of the questionnaire to avoid bias.

Only those who had left their email address were informed. About the measurements made, the time allocated to the project did not allow other scenarios to be considered. This might be interesting to compare the effect of gendered advertising on different types of products. In addition, measuring the effect of gendered advertising on the gender not targeted by the advertising could be a way to get a more global view of the effect of the product on consumers, particularly from the perspective of gender as a multidimensional notion. Finally, given the growing proportion of nonbinary people [START_REF] Brown | About 5% of young adults in the U.S. say their gender is different from their sex assigned at birth[END_REF], future research could look at their views on gender marketing, particularly in terms of self-brand connection.

Zosuls KM, Miller CF, Ruble DN, et al. (2011)

Figure 1 -

 1 Figure 1 -Advertising by Darty (Translation: "She buys online. He picks up my orders at the shop.") 4

Figure 2 -

 2 Figure 2 -Gender segmentation of an Apericube range (Translation: "Tonight, let's play!" [left], "Tonight, girls' night" [right]) 5

  Some studies have also shown a difference between men and women in attitudes towards gendered ads. It is for example the case of a study conducted by[START_REF] Spielmann | Real Men Don't Buy "Mrs. Clean": Gender Bias in Gendered Brands[END_REF]: the aim of the study was to prove that a gender bias exists when consumers choose a product judged as feminine or masculine. For the two experiments of this study, the stimuli were respectively a logo (a man as the muse of Monopoly vs. a woman) and a name (Harney Premium Tea vs. Harney & Sons Premium Tea vs. Harney and Daughters Premium Tea). These experiments have shown that gendered versions are preferred over neutral version. However, by taking a closer look at the distribution of results, there is a difference in purchases intentions regarding consumers' gender.

Figure 3 -

 3 Figure 3 -Theory of Planned Behavior[START_REF] Ajzen | The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes[END_REF]

H1.

  Gendered advertisements have a negative effect on (a) Purchase Intentions (PI), (b) Word-Of-Mouth Intentions (WOMI), and (c) Willingness To Pay (WTP). H2. Gendered advertisements (vs. not) have a negative effect on Self-Brand Connection (SBC). H3. Self-Brand Connection (SBC) is positively correlated with (a) Purchase intentions (PI), (b) Word-Of-Mouth Intentions (WOMI), and (c) Willingness to pay (WTP). H4. (a) Gender and (b) Masculinity / Femininity scores moderate the effect of a gendered ad on Self-Brand Connection (SBC).

Figure 4 -

 4 Figure 4 -Research model

  14.64 vs. Mmale = 14.90, p = 0.82), nor for the gender-neutral package (Mfemale = 17.56 vs. Mmale = 17.60, p = 0.98). No difference has been found for levels of masculinity and femininity regarding selfbrand connection neither in the condition of the gendered package (Mhighmasculinityhighfemininity = 15.25 vs. Mhighmasculinitylowfemininity = 15.50 vs Mlowmasculinityhighfemininity = 14.40 vs. Mlowmasculinitylowfemininity= 13.72, p = 0.67) nor for the gender-neutral package (Mhighmasculinityhighfemininity = 18.60 vs. Mhighmasculinitylowfemininity = 18.93 vs. Mlowmasculinityhighfemininity = 17.35 vs. Mlowmasculinitylowfemininity= 15.73, p = 0.42). H4a and H4b should therefore be rejected. Details of the statistical analyses are provided in Appendix 4.

FIGURE 2 -

 2 FIGURE 2 -GENDER SEGMENTATION OF AN APERICUBE RANGE (TRANSLATION: "TONIGHT, LET'S PLAY!" [LEFT], "TONIGHT, GIRLS' NIGHT" [RIGHT]) .................................................................................................................................................

FIGURE 3 -

 3 FIGURE 3 -THEORY OF PLANNED BEHAVIOR (AJZEN, 1991) .............................................................................................. FIGURE 4 -RESEARCH MODEL ...................................................................................................................................... FIGURE 5 -RECAP OF HYPOTHESES ................................................................................................................................

  Gender Development Research in Sex Roles: Historical Trends and Future Directions. Sex Roles 64(11): 826-842. DOI: 10.1007/s11199-010-9902-3.

TABLE OF FIGURES

 OF FIGURE 1 -ADVERTISING BY DARTY (TRANSLATION: "SHE BUYS ONLINE. HE PICKS UP MY ORDERS AT THE SHOP.") ..........................

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/fr/dictionnaire/anglais/gender-neutral (Consulted on: June 7,

2023)2 https://dictionary.apa.org/stereotype (Consulted on: June 7, 2023)

https://dictionary.apa.org/stereotype (Consulted on: June 7, 2023)

Source: https://www.lsa-conso.fr/la-campagne-sexiste-de-darty,154303 (consulted on June 9, 2023)

Source: https://www.slate.fr/story/50935/gender-marketing-publicite-stylo-bic-sanogyl (consulted on June 9, 2023)

= gendered;

= not gendered SBC → PI

Gender → SBC (for gendered packages only) Masculinity / Femininity categories → SBC (for gendered packages only) 1= high masculinity / high femininity; 2= high masculinity / low femininity; 3 = low masculinity / high femininity; 4= low masculinity / low femininity

CHAPTER 3 -CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGY

I. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

A. Research gaps and aim of the study

The literature on gender-neutral products has focused on products for which gender issues are frequent, such as fragrance or apparel. However, the issue of gender in advertising is in fact extended to many other sectors: advertisements for products such as ice cream or even folded sheet metal 7 have provoked negative reactions from social network users. Hence, this study looked at the question of gender in relation to a mass-market product which is not usually gendered: cheese, also in reference to the Apericube controversy described above [START_REF] Gourion | Marketing genré et sexisme: le top 10 des produits «pour femmes» les plus étranges[END_REF]. Also, products that convey real stereotypes about the behaviours and attributes that men and women should respectively adopt provoke reactance [START_REF] Åkestam | Gender stereotypes in advertising have negative cross-gender effects[END_REF][START_REF] Baxter | Ads aimed at dads: exploring consumers' reactions towards advertising that conforms and challenges traditional gender role ideologies[END_REF][START_REF] Chu | The effect of non-stereotypical gender role advertising on consumer evaluation[END_REF].

However, the literature seems to indicate that the aesthetic attributes associated with a product's gender, i.e., its shape, name, or colour, can increase the product's desirability [START_REF] Borau | Gendered products act as the extended phenotype of human sexual dimorphism: They increase physical attractiveness and desirability[END_REF][START_REF] Cramphorn | Gender effects in advertising[END_REF][START_REF] Spielmann | Real Men Don't Buy "Mrs. Clean": Gender Bias in Gendered Brands[END_REF][START_REF] Van Tilburg | Beyond "Pink It and Shrink It" Perceived Product Gender, Aesthetics, and Product Evaluation[END_REF]. This study will therefore deal with an intermediate situation, where the targeted gender was explicitly indicated, but without conveying a degrading image of men and/or women as the Darty advertisement did (LSA Conso,

2013).

The contribution of this study is also to examine the evaluation of (non-)gendered advertisements in the context of the evolution of gender. According to more than half of Americans from Generation Z, binarity is destined to disappear [START_REF] Reynolds | Study: Half of Gen Z Believes the Gender Binary Is Outdated[END_REF], giving way to a self that is free of any gender label.

Hence, non-gendered advertisements could strengthen the connection between the self and the brand, which in turn could influence behavioural intentions. This is why one of the main variables to be addressed will be the self / brand connection, which has been little studied in the literature on gendered marketing. Gender has also been studied from a plural and evolutionary approach, once again rarely used in marketing: gender in its binary version and masculinity / femininity scores have both been used in this study.

B. Variables

Self-brand connection Self-brand connection (SBC) refers to "the extent to which individuals have incorporated brands into their self-concept" [START_REF] Escalas | You Are What They Eat: The Influence of Reference Groups on Consumers' Connections to Brands[END_REF] The questionnaire was sent to French speakers, so the items were translated from their original paper. Given that the translation procedure was less rigorous than it should have been, the items are presented here as they were analysed. The results presented above might slightly differ if the scale had been used in its original language.