Social norms in marketing: will metaverse change the trends?

Abstract

Social norms are rules of behaviour that are considered acceptable in society. These may differ across cultures and societies and have a significant impact on the behaviour of an individual. Marketers incorporate these social norms in advertising too. For example, in most laundry detergent ads, we see the protagonist or primary consumer as a lady since it is an accepted social norm in India that the job of washing clothes belongs to the lady of the house. While some of these social norms are being challenged by companies now, several still prevail. Social norms in advertising and marketing revolve around gender, race, sex, age, geography, etc. First, we will analyse a few of the existing social norms as brands may rely on the conventional norms and stereotypes developed over decades or may look to change them for the metaverse.