Purpose

Despite the increasing popularity of women-owned businesses in the marketplace, relatively few studies in the hospitality literature have focused on these businesses. Hence, this study aims to examine the impact of femvertising and purplewashing on consumers’ willingness to pay a premium at women-owned restaurants, as well as the role of feminist self-identification and psychological closeness underlying these associated effects. The study aims to provide insights into women-owned restaurant marketing strategies and to highlight the importance of authentic brand activism in consumer behavior in the restaurant industry.

Design/methodology/approach

Building on Construal Level Theory, this paper conducts two online experiments with 486 US participants who have dined at or ordered takeout from a restaurant. The studies aim to investigate consumers’ opinions about brand activism strategies (i.e. femvertising and purplewashing) in restaurants.

Findings

The results of two experimental studies indicate that a femvertising strategy increases consumers’ willingness to pay a premium for a women-owned restaurant compared to a non-women-owned restaurant. Moreover, consumers who identify more strongly as feminists are more likely to pay more for women-owned restaurants when purplewashing is absent (vs present). Additionally, psychological closeness serves as an underlying mechanism that explains these effects.

Practical implications

This study provides clear and actionable recommendations to help business stakeholders, owners and managers to market and advertise women-owned restaurants. For example, women-owned restaurant practitioners should feature women empowerment messaging in their advertisements to attract more consumers. However, they should avoid using purplewashing and other inauthentic brand activism practices in advertisements.

Originality/value

This research contributes to the hospitality literature on women entrepreneurship by exploring the effective marketing strategies of women-owned restaurants and investigating how to advertise women-owned businesses in the hospitality field. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is also the very first study to explore the role of femvertising and purplewashing in consumers’ food-related decision-making.

中文翻译：

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餐厅中的女性赋权：女性广告、洗紫和女权主义身份对消费者支付溢价意愿的影响

 目的

尽管女性拥有的企业在市场上越来越受欢迎，但酒店文献中关注这些企业的研究相对较少。因此，本研究旨在检验女性化和洗紫对消费者在女性拥有的餐厅支付溢价的意愿的影响，以及女权主义自我认同和心理亲密关系在这些相关影响背后的作用。该研究旨在提供对女性拥有的餐厅营销策略的见解，并强调真实的品牌行动主义在餐饮业消费者行为中的重要性。

设计/方法/方法

本文以解释水平理论为基础，对 486 名在餐厅用餐或点过外卖的美国参与者进行了两个在线实验。这些研究旨在调查消费者对餐厅品牌激进主义策略（即女性化和紫色清洗）的看法。

 发现

两项实验研究的结果表明，与非女性拥有的餐厅相比，女性化策略提高了消费者为女性拥有的餐厅支付溢价的意愿。此外，当没有 purplewashing 时（与现在相比），更强烈地认同为女权主义者的消费者更有可能为女性拥有的餐厅支付更多费用。此外，心理上的亲密是解释这些影响的潜在机制。

 实际意义

这项研究提供了明确且可操作的建议，以帮助企业利益相关者、所有者和管理者营销和宣传女性拥有的餐厅。例如，女性拥有的餐厅从业者应该在他们的广告中展示女性赋权信息，以吸引更多的消费者。但是，他们应该避免在广告中使用 purplewashing 和其他不真实的品牌激进主义做法。

 原创性/价值

本研究通过探索女性拥有的餐厅的有效营销策略并调查如何在酒店领域为女性拥有的企业做广告，为关于女性创业的酒店文献做出了贡献。据作者所知，这也是第一项探讨女性化和紫色清洗在消费者食品相关决策中的作用的研究。