ADVERTISING SEX-TYPED SERVICES - THE EFFECTS OF SEX, SERVICE TYPE, AND EMPLOYEE TYPE ON CONSUMER ATTITUDES

The use of employee spokespersons in. the advertising of services has received growing attention in, the academic literature because the pre sence of an employee in the advertisement may help visualize the servi ce offering for the customer by providing a physical representation of the service provider. Moreover, a decrease in occupational segregatio n indicates a potential need for repositioning traditionally sex-typed services. The author examines the use of male versus female employees and the use of service managers versus workers for sex-typed services . Two separate samples were used: students and working adults. For the student sample, results suggest that for female-dominant services, co ngruency between the source and the service results in higher cognitiv e attitudes toward the ad. However, for a male-dominant service, a con gruent approach and a progressive role portrayal produce equivalent at titudes. For the sample of working adults, results indicate that a con gruent and a progressive approach produce equivalent attitudes. Overal l, they suggest that (I) among working adults, whether or not a servic e is male or female dominant has little influence on whether a men or a woman should be pictured in, an ad for that service and (2) student samples are not the best surrogates to use in experimental research if students are not typical consumers of the product(s) being tested.