Femvertising or faux CSR? A comparative analysis of sport brands

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine whether sport companies that promote gender equality through femvertising, an advertising trend that empowers women and confronts gender stereotypes, actually support women’s rights with institutionalized approaches to challenge gender issues. Some sport brands even have won awards for their femvertising efforts, however, not all of them have modified their policies and programs to support gender equality. Sport femvertising can be a new area for CSR-washing and this study investigated this potential.

Design/methodology/approach

Utilizing a content analysis, this study compared sport brands' (award-winning vs non-award-winning) level of engagement in internal and external CSR activities regarding gender equality. Sport brands’ CSR attempts and number of women in leadership positions were analyzed through companies’ CSR reports, annual reports and websites.

Findings

Only few differences between two groups (award-winning vs non-award-winning) of sport brands were observed regarding their gender equality CSR engagement. In some cases, non-award-winning sport brands had a greater percentage of women in leadership and practiced more internal gender equality CSR.

Originality/value

This paper provides valuable information about the potential of femvertising as an advertisement, as well as CSR strategy. Results of this study broaden our understanding of how sport companies embraced this advertising/CSR technique and the repercussions. Findings provide guidance for sport marketers who seek to improve their brand image through femvertising.

Citation

Sharifzadeh, Z. and Brison, N.T. (2024), "Femvertising or faux CSR? A comparative analysis of sport brands", Sport, Business and Management, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/SBM-03-2024-0027

Surviving in the highly competitive sport market requires brands to maximize their uniqueness and highlight their distinguished features (Ford and Stohl, 2019). Since 1980, sport brands have used corporate social responsibility (CSR) to differentiate themselves in an evolving cultural context and to promote their support of social issues through advertising (Pankiw et al., 2020). CSR refers to actions undertaken by a company that aim to benefit society beyond the company's financial interests and legal obligations (Kim et al., 2017). This concept is based on the idea that businesses are integral parts of society (Breitbarth and Harris, 2008). Consequently, CSR advertising has frequently been employed to signal sport companies’ advocacy of socio-political movements.

Research suggests that consumers want brands to be socially responsible, specifically toward gender equality, as a challenging social issue (Lee and Cho, 2019; Sterbenk et al., 2022; Vredenburg et al., 2020). To address this call for action, sport brands are embracing techniques such as femvertising, advertising that features the empowered images of women and challenges gender stereotypes accustomed in traditional advertising (Åkestam et al., 2017). Research reveals that femvertising strongly resonates with customers, specifically women, thereby leading to positive attitudes (Drake, 2017; Um, 2021) and increased sales (Abitbol and Sternadori, 2016; Åkestam et al., 2017). However, while benefiting from the positive effects of femvertising, not all these brands have made changes within their organizations to support gender equality.

As of today, several femvertising brands have been denounced for the absence of women in leadership roles (Storbeck, 2017), alleged sexism (Hsu, 2018) and negative messages about body image (Blay, 2016). Stakeholders expect brands to make authentic, long-term commitments to the causes they support (Afzali and Kim, 2021; Diers-Lawson et al., 2020; Kuokkanen and Sun, 2020). Duan et al. (2021) emphasized that “with numerous tools available to help people learn about a company’s CSR practices, consumers now have higher standards for corporate dedication to sustainability and social rights” (para. 1). Also, according to Markstein and Certus Insights (2019), “70% of consumers want to know how the brands they support are addressing social and environmental issues, and 46% pay close attention to these efforts when making purchase decisions” (para. 5). Inconsistency between brands’ actions and claims when engaged in false CSR, lead them to be considered practicing decoupling (Tashman et al., 2019), hypocrisy (Afzali and Kim, 2021; Pope and Wæraas, 2016) or CSR-washing (Khan et al., 2021). However, there is limited understanding of whether sport brands involved in femvertising genuinely support their messages of gender equality with corporate actions or just practice a new form of CSR-washing.

Drawing from signaling theory (Connelly et al., 2011; Spence, 1973), this study argues that people will interpret companies’ femvertising as reflecting broader gender equality within the corporation. Therefore, it is also expected to see support for gender equality inside the company. In this context, this paper analyzes the level of femvertising sport brands’ commitment to their claims regarding the support of gender equality. By reviewing sport brands’ annual reports, CSR reports and websites, we sought to compare to what extent femvertising and non-femvertising sport brands differ in conducting gender equality CSR initiatives.

Literature review

CSR strategies

CSR is the extent to which organizations maintain legal, economic, ethical, environmental and philanthropic responsibilities toward their stakeholders (Latapí Agudelo et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2016). Cases for CSR are found in nearly all sectors of human activity, encompassing socially responsible activities that protect consumers and contribute to the improvement of society (Nave and Ferreira, 2019; Wang et al., 2016), and sport is no exception. Research indicates that professional sport executives consider CSR to be a crucial strategic element for their business (Sheth and Babiak, 2010). As Babiak and Wolfe (2013) emphasized, sport CSR initiatives benefit from unique advantages not seen in other industries. These include the high profile of celebrity athletes and significant media coverage of sports events, leagues, teams and athletes. Consequently, sport brands and organizations can have a more substantial impact compared to other businesses, particularly in areas such as social and cultural development, education and environmental awareness.

However, a problem arises when sport companies must choose a CSR strategy aligned with their business goals. Meaning, temporarily, to generate increased sales or in the long-term, to generate more indirect results such as high brand perception, positive attitude towards the brand and enhanced customer loyalty. Pirsch et al. (2007) explain the difference between these two approaches as a continuum from institutionalized CSR to promotional CSR. Institutionalized CSR programs are identified when firms internalize CSR throughout the organization, modify policies inside the company and create programs that support their social position. At the other end of the spectrum, promotional programs are defined as using CSR initiatives and communicating with them primarily as a tool to drive product sales.

This targets the notion of authenticity in the sport CSR attempts. Authentic CSR is characterized by passion for the cause, transparency, consistency and visibility in the community (Heinze et al., 2014). Research in sport suggests that the authenticity of CSR initiatives stems from the alignment between the brand’s CSR activities and its core values (distinctiveness), coupled with a thorough understanding of both stakeholder needs and broader societal needs (connectedness) (Mazutis and Slawinski, 2015). Moreover, authentic CSR is identified as a dynamic process that relies on effective communication between the sport brand and target audience (Mamo et al., 2022). Therefore, transferring the true information via tools like CSR advertising, directly impacts the authenticity of the CSR effort. However, sport brands have shown to adopt different approaches regarding authentic CSR communication.

A spectrum suggested by Ginder et al. (2021) conceptualized four distinct CSR positions: uniform, discreet, washing and apathetic. A uniform position happens when CSR-related external communications accurately reflect the company’s adopted CSR activities. Conversely, an apathetic position occurs when a company is not internally involved nor externally claiming any CSR attempt. While uniform and apathetic positions are congruent in their actions and claims, discreet and washing positions display incongruence. A discreet CSR position occurs “when a firm’s internal CSR actions are not touted through consumer-directed communication efforts” (Ginder et al., 2021, p. 357). Further, the CSR-washing position refers to “when a company misleadingly claims to engage in CSR although it does not actually participate in the marketed behavior” (Ginder et al., 2021, p. 357). Both studies revealed positive effects on consumers’ attributions facing institutionalized or uniform CSR programs. Although internalizing CSR claims is the most effective CSR strategy, the results of Ginder et al. (2021) suggest that the congruence between internal CSR and CSR communication is also of significant importance.

Today, companies are expected to communicate their CSR efforts to a varied, influential, alert audience (Bernardino, 2021). One robust tool for companies to communicate their CSR activity is CSR advertising (del Mar García‐De los Salmones and Perez, 2018; Jia, 2020), through which consumers are informed about established associations between corporations and society (Chomvilailuk and Butcher, 2018; Hayes et al., 2022). CSR advertising has been shown to have positive effects on various consumer behaviors, such as customer satisfaction (Park et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2020) and loyalty (Gürlek et al., 2017; Rivera et al., 2019), consumer-brand relationship (Holiday et al., 2021; Lacey and Kennett-Hensel, 2016; Shankar and Yadav, 2021) and purchase intention (Bianchi et al., 2019; Gupta et al., 2021). Research also suggests that most consumers, especially the tech-savvy generation, will seek and dig out the information to evaluate the authenticity of a company’s CSR advertising and other initiatives (Chatzopoulou and de Kiewiet, 2021). Therefore, companies should be aware of consumers’ use of large-scale communication platforms, such as social media, to challenge corporate motives behind CSR advertising. As Pirsch et al. (2007) and Ginder et al. (2021) emphasized, the most successful promotional CSR efforts are those supported by institutionalized CSR actions.

Femvertising

Since Dove’s 2004 Campaign for Real Beauty succeeded, brands who attempted female empowerment campaigns successfully attracted the target market (Feng et al., 2019). Research has shown that 84% of Americans support companies that advocate gender equality (Castillo, 2014). Thus, companies responded to this demand by addressing women’s rights through Femvertising campaigns, advertising and marketing techniques that strive to minimize gender stereotypes, empower women and celebrate their championships (Zeisler, 2016). It is argued that the popularity of Femvertising results from women’s demand for a more accurate representation of gender roles and less sexualizing (Varghese and Kumar, 2022). Given that women’s empowerment messaging explicitly conveys a corporation’s support for gender equality, Femvertising is also a CSR communication tool that induces positive consumer reactions (Teng et al., 2021).

Research suggests that ads with female-empowering messages highly resonate with women since it generates positive self-concepts and tackles the existing gender stereotypes audiences have accustomed to seeing in ads (Abitbol and Sternadori, 2016; Varghese and Kumar, 2022). Compared to the traditional portrayal of women in ads, wherein the female body is mainly depicted as hypersexualized, perfect and flawless, femvertising has elicited significantly lower psychological reactance (Åkestam et al., 2017). According to an online survey of 628 women by SheKnows Media, most women consider femvertising as an influential tool to decrease gender discrimination (2017). A total of 71% of women believe companies should take responsibility for using their advertising to promote positive messages to women and girls (SheKnows Media, 2017). A total of 52% of women have purchased a product due to the more favorable depiction of women in the company’s advertisements and claimed that supporting the brand makes them feel good (Castillo, 2014).

While consumers’ reactance to femvertising is generally positive, the level of congruence between what brands communicate and how they act regarding female empowerment needs to be clarified. For instance, sports brands frequently employ female-empowering advertisements, acknowledging that women make up 47% of the sports fan base. However, employment statistics reveal that the professional sports industry continues to be predominantly male-dominated (Mamo et al., 2021). Similarly, when Google and Microsoft launched their Femvertising campaigns, Google was sued for gender pay gaps (Wiessner, 2017), and Microsoft had 238 public lawsuits about gender discrimination and harassment (Levine, 2018). A comparable scenario occurred when State Street Global Advisors tried to empower women through their “Fearless Girl” campaign, a sculpture of a young girl in the Wall Street area, while they were concurrently dealing with a gender pay dispute (Holman, 2017). Despite the increasing popularity of femvertising, there is a lack of research investigating to what extent companies’ claims of female empowerment through promotional CSR are supported institutionally.

Signaling theory

Signaling theory explains that when two parties communicate, one has more information than the other, and this information asymmetry will lead one party, the sender, to communicate (or signal) that information. The other party, the receiver, interprets the signal (Connelly et al., 2011). Communicating such signals “reduces the uncertainty existing between the two parties and, ultimately, the prestige and standing one party has with the other” (Cunningham and Melton, 2014, p. 38). Then the receiver will observe and assess the information and presume that the message is authentic.

Researchers have relied on signaling theory to examine various management issues (Bae et al., 2018; Zerbini, 2017). Within the marketing literature, research has shown that consumers take a wide variety of signals, such as advertising expense (Li et al., 2020) and warranty information (Filieri et al., 2021; Zhang et al., 2017), and translate them as indicators of product quality. In the sport context, Vierhaus (2019) demonstrated that countries use Olympic advertisements to send positive signals about business and tourism in the country. Cunningham and Melton (2014) examined the influence of LGBT-inclusive advertising messages on consumers’ attitudes toward a fitness club. The authors evidenced increased customer attitudes due to signaling club diversity. McCullough and Melton (2017) also examined how advertising a sport company’s environmental policy affects consumers’ purchase intentions. Results indicated that individuals were more likely to purchase from the company after receiving the signal about environmental sustainability.

Supporting controversial social issues like LGBTQ + rights, race relations and gender equality has become a popular way for companies to demonstrate their social responsibility. This trend is largely driven by the increasing demands from socially aware consumers, employees and investors who urge companies to address these social challenges. Consequently, companies have responded by addressing these complex topics through CSR advertising (Pomering et al., 2013). They use methods like short videos and commercials, or experiential brand activations to send engaging messages that associate their brands with social causes in a positive way (Browning et al., 2018). Brands that practice these types of CSR communication, such as femvertising, signal their level of acceptance and concern to the target market.

Based on signaling theory, firms that embrace CSR strategies seek to communicate positively to stakeholders that they are more apt to fill social and institutional voids (Saxton et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2020). These actions indicate a brand’s receptivity toward social challenges and add to the brand’s reputation (Vredenburg et al., 2020). More importantly, when CSR programs are communicated to the public through annual reports, CSR reports, and websites (Ara Begum, 2018), they build corporate reputation and credibility (Abu Zayyad et al., 2021; Usman, 2020). Meanwhile, utilizing a faux CSR claim to improve a company’s competitive standing (Pope and Wæraas, 2016, p. 175) can weaken brand reputation and decrease consumer-brand emotional connection (Aqueveque et al., 2018; Arli et al., 2017; Bonsu, 2020). As a solution to this uncertainty, Zerbini (2017) suggests that having measurable indicators “beyond regulatory obligations” can be a strong signal cueing that the company is committed to the cause (p. 9). Thereby, it is crucial for brands to have quantifiable internal and external actions supporting their advertised CSR.

Research questions

Existing literature primarily has examined consumer responses to femvertising (Abitbol and Sternadori, 2016; Feng et al., 2019; Kapoor and Munjal, 2019) or the framing of the pro-female messages (Champlin et al., 2019; Sobande, 2019). Although research has examined the effectiveness of different CSR initiatives among sport organizations, the results of a literature review by Carlini et al. (2021) revealed a paucity of research on gender equality in the sport CSR literature. Moreover, more research has yet to explore whether companies that engage in sport femvertising are internally committed to the cause in their overall CSR program. This factor can impact brands’ long-term reputation and loyalty (Pirsch et al., 2007). As mentioned, femvertising is associated with increased sales, elevated brand recognition and greater reputation. However, not supporting CSR advertising with comparable internal and external corporate initiatives will have negative repercussions (Arli et al., 2017; Chen et al., 2020). Therefore, it is expected that femvertising brands, recognized as the pioneers of gender equality in the industry, support the cause in significant ways. Thus, we proposed the following research question:

RQ1.

Do sport brands that utilize Femvertising demonstrate a greater commitment to internal policies and external programs supporting women compared to brands that do not use femvertising?

Representation of women in leadership levels “not only signifies a corporate commitment to empowering and recognizing the value of female employees, but it also correlates to a higher level of overall corporate responsibility activity” (Sterbenk et al., 2022, p. 495). Kevin Plank, CEO of Under Armour, mentioned at an event introducing the brand’s femvertising campaign, “We learned nine men sitting around a table cannot make change for women” (Diaz and Zmuda, 2014). The lack of women in leadership roles can be detrimental to a brand’s CSR acceptance, especially when targeting women (Sterbenk et al., 2022). Companies with more women in leadership roles tend to exhibit more significant corporate responsibility activity (Cook and Glass, 2018; Setó-Pamies, 2015) and focus on gender equality (Macaulay et al., 2018). When people perceive greater levels of women’s representation in top leadership, they overgeneralize the extent to which women have access to equal opportunities in that environment (Zenger and Folkman, 2019). In the same manner, when brands signal their gender equality CSR through femvertising, it is expected that more women be engaged in the leadership levels of the company. As a result, we pose the following question:

RQ2.

Do femvertising and non-femvertising sport brands differ in their female representation in leadership positions?

As offered by Larrieta-Rubín de Celis et al. (2015), gender equality CSR should cover both internal and external dimensions. There are numerous internal and external CSR activities in which companies might choose to engage to show their support for gender equality, including employee resource groups, hiring commitments and company-wide training (internal), as well as partnerships with nonprofits, helping members of a community, connecting with consumers and others (external). To further understand the extent to which sport brands are involved in institutionalized vs promotional CSR, it is also essential to examine the types of activities these companies support most and least. These findings will shed light on the areas of opportunity companies, especially those with femvertising brands, might consider engaging further to justify their public displays of gender equality. Therefore, the following research question is proposed:

RQ3.

What types of gender equality CSR activities are femvertising vs non-femvertising sport brands engaged in?

Method

Research design

This study employs a qualitative approach to report findings. The aim is to evaluate the extent to which sport brands align their internal and external practices with their femvertising messages, focusing on internal policies, external programs supporting women and women’s representation in leadership positions. Content analysis is a method for codifying text or other contents into groups or categories guided by a set of criteria (Weber, 1990). This method has effectively been used in CSR research to examine corporate reporting practices and contents disclosed in CR reports (Khan et al., 2020; Landrum and Ohsowski, 2018; Torelli et al., 2020).

Following Sterbenk et al. (2022), the aim was to analyze gender equality CSR initiatives taken by sport brands that have practiced femvertising campaigns. To do so, two lists of companies were created to compare the CSR and leadership activities. The first list consists of sport companies that have conducted femvertising campaigns. The second list includes similar competitor companies that have yet to use femvertising as a CSR/marketing strategy. While the primary analysis is qualitative, the findings are quantified and reported as percentages to facilitate comparison between femvertising and non-femvertising sport brands.

List of brands

The primary sources for selecting femvertising brands were advertising archives. Researchers investigated Ads released from 2015 to 2022. This time period was selected due to the term “femvertising” originating in 2015 (Mamuric, 2019). Also, varying policies and social norms in different countries could impact companies’ adoption of gender equality CSR. Therefore, this study only investigates US-based companies or brands with headquarters in the USA. Using Factiva – business intelligence platform, a list of US-based sport brands was collected. Female empowering ads were searched using the brands’ names in Adforum’s online commercial archive and the brands’ YouTube official channels. For additional information, websites such as SheKnowsMedia, Cannes’s Glass Lion for Change, Clio Sport Awards and Ads of the World archive were searched for their female empowering award-winners and collections. In the initial round, 86 female empowering video advertisements were selected. Companies were removed from the list if they did not have enough materials to review CSR and leadership activities adequately and were not US-based. The resulting list (Group 1) comprised 16 femvertising sport companies from 2015 to 2022 (n = 16).

The second list of non-femvertising sport brands was required to compare the brands’ commitment to gender equality based on their CSR involvements. The second list (Group 2) consists of competitive companies in the same industry, with a similar size to Group 1. We used Owler.com and Factiva to identify the competitive companies in the same industry that offered a similar product/service, with the closest size to Group 1 companies. LinkedIn, Gale Business Insights and Mergent Intellect were used to determine the companies’ current number of employees, annual revenue, market share and leadership team listings (Brammer and Millington, 2006). Some companies had the same competitors (e.g. Sketchers was the competitor for both Nike and Adidas). So, we used the second top competitor brand (n = 16). The final lists of brands (n = 32), femvertising and non-femvertising, are denoted in Table 1.

Coding procedure

Annual reports, CSR reports and companies’ websites are the main communication channels for brands to declare their CSR engagements (De Jong and van der Meer, 2017) and have been widely used to evaluate CSR actions (Ben-Amar and Belgacem, 2018; Wang et al., 2018). We gathered each company’s most recent materials (from 2021 to 2022). Due to the reported correlation between the firm size and the level of companies’ engagement in philanthropic activity (e.g. D’Amato and Falivena, 2020), companies’ current number of employees and annual revenue were documented using Gale Business Insights and Factiva.

First, we reviewed the collected materials. Then, a profile was generated for each brand in which the company’s data about gender equality and women’s empowerment CSR activities was collected. We followed the CSR profile criteria suggested by De Jong and van der Meer (2017) as, “The activity must be performed voluntarily, the activity must not be obligated by law, the activity must be concrete (the text made clear what the activity involved), the organization itself must participate in the activity” (p. 76). Each company profile was created and edited to ensure the accuracy of the collected data. We also documented the number of women in each company’s senior leadership (when applicable) and the total revenue of each company. Derived from Sterbenk et al. (2022), a comprehensive list of different types of corporate activities that companies may engage in to address issues of gender equality and female empowerment was used. The list of activities can be found in Table 2.

Results

RQ1 examined whether sport brands that use femvertising demonstrate a greater commitment to internal and external CSR efforts compared to those that do not. We analyzed the CSR reports, annual reports and website content of 32 sport companies, divided into two groups: femvertising brands (n = 16) and non-femvertising brands (n = 16). The qualitative content analysis identified various themes and activities related to gender equality and women’s empowerment. The analysis of data from 32 sport companies indicated that the total percentage of engagement in female-driven causes was 51.3% for femvertising brands and 39.8% for non-femvertising brands. Nike and Under Armour, both femvertising brands, had the most engagement of 84 and 79%, accordingly. Decker’s Brand from Group 2 also reported 15 out of 19 (79%) gender equality CSRs.

It was also important to see the percentage of women in leadership positions, because corporate philanthropy, specifically gendered social responsibility, is shown greater among corporates with more women in their leadership positions (Williams, 2003; Zhang et al., 2013). This certain aspect of brands might explain differences in companies’ likelihood to engage in efforts toward gender equality. As such, RQ2 aimed to see if there is any difference between femvertising and non-femvertising sport brands in their tendency to represent women in leadership roles. These frequencies can be found in Table 3. The content analysis showed that among the 16 femvertising sport brands, only four had more than 50% women in leadership positions, while one brand had less than 15%. Overall, femvertising sport brands had 40% of leadership positions occupied by women, compared to 34% in non-femvertising sport brands.

Research question three examined the most and the least gender equality CSR activities used by femvertising and non-femvertising sport brands. Results revealed that no company was engaged in all the 19 possible initiatives. Nike, a femvertising company, had the most overall CSR initiatives in total (16 initiatives), with 11 out of 13 internal initiatives present, and five out of six external activities. Among the Group one companies, Adidas, Nike and Lululemon had the greatest number of internal activities (11 initiatives), and Nike and Under Armour had the greatest number of external activities (five initiatives). Among the group two brands, Decker’s had the greatest number of internal activities (12 initiatives), and Columbia and Gildan had the greatest number of external activities (five initiatives).

Among the internal CSR programs and actions, the most popular activity was Employee Resource Groups (ERG) mentoring or networking for women and the company changing the policy on their hiring process, which, respectively, 70 and 66% of the organizations utilized. A total of 62% of the companies engaged in gender bias training that goes beyond sexual harassment training. A total of 60% of the companies had internal events focused on gender issues and empowerment, and made changes in their HR policies to support gender equality. Also, 57% of companies announced support programs for women in the supply chain. The least internal CSR programs utilized by sport brands were sourced from women-owned businesses and initiatives to work with other businesses, suppliers, partners that are gender-inclusive, which, respectively, 28 and 22% of sport brands engaged in.

Among the external initiatives, 66% of sport brands are involved in programs that benefit women and girls in the community, such as Adidas’ Women’s History Month collection that committed to fund $1 million in brand-new sport and fitness equipment to directly impact girls in the community. Also, 60% of organizations engaged in support for nonprofits and NGOs that focus on gender or women’s issues. The least utilized external CSR programs and actions were initiatives that encourage their industry or help other businesses to address gender equality, and diversifying or rethinking product lines aimed at expanding gender reach or addressing gender stereotypes, which only 19% of the companies reported.

Discussion

This study aimed to investigate the level of sport brands’ commitment to their claims regarding the support of gender equality. By creating a female empowering advertisement (femvertising), brands communicate their support of gender equality as a social issue. These femvertising brands profit from increased customer loyalty, firm value and sales by being known as socially responsible companies compared to other brands in the market. However, there was a doubt whether these femvertising brands genuinely practiced what they communicated to consumers and other stakeholders or just exploited the new CSR advertising trend. As Larrieta-Rubín de Celis et al. (2015) concluded, “it is easier and better for the company’s reputation to reflect corporate commitment towards gender equality in its mission and vision statement than actually to implement specific initiatives” (p. 100). Therefore, by comparing femvertising and non-femvertising sport brands, this study analyzed to what extent femvertising brands have institutionalized their support of gender equality. We expected to find femvertising sport brands more engaged than non-femvertising brands.

Despite the limited sample size, results indicated that femvertising sport brands are not notably more engaged in internal and external gender equality CSR activities. Although these brands publicly announce their support for gender equality, they show only a slight improvement in the representation of women in leadership positions. In some cases, non-femvertising brands reached more gender balance and engaged with more rigorous CSR initiatives. Considering consumers’ growing sense of scrutiny regarding CSR advertising (Brunk and De Boer, 2020; Kim and Rim, 2019), it was noteworthy to observe no distinct differences between the two groups of sport brands.

CSR strategies

The results of this study shed light on sport brands’ different approaches regarding the consistency between CSR communications and CSR actions. Referring to Ginder et al. (2021) spectrum of CSR positions, discreet and washing positions seem to be the case for multiple sport brands in this study. Overall, their findings confirmed the remarkable effect of CSR communication–action congruence on how consumers respond to CSR activity. Consumers perceive discreet CSR firms to be more intrinsically motivated than those in washing positions (Ginder et al., 2021). While consumers’ purchase intentions decrease in exposing the washing position, a discreet position produces favorable purchase intentions (Ginder et al., 2021).

This concept is discussed by Hainneville et al. (2023) as consistency, one of the main dimensions of authentic femvertising. As the authors revealed, a company that has consistently supported women’s representation from its inception, with no communication, is generally perceived as more authentic. Similarly, a brand like Dove, which initially did not promote these values but later led the femvertising movement, is more likely to be viewed as genuine (Hainneville et al., 2023). Further, a discreet position is perceived similarly to a uniform position (Ginder et al., 2021). Meaning having no CSR communication (through advertising, social media, etc.) will result in a more positive influence on consumers than communicating faux CSR. Several of the non-femvertising brands seem to choose discreet positioning. These brands have not distinctly attempted to communicate or announce their support of gender equality, although some of them are practicing high levels of gender equality CSR activities inside and outside the company (e.g. Champion and Gildan). This also can be viewed as a quietly conscientious strategy that suggests the brands’ attempt to ward off potential criticism of consumer and activist scrutiny (Vallaster et al., 2019), an approach that Carlos and Lewis (2018) called “hypocrisy avoidance” (p. 130). Adopting this approach, organizations do not publicize their CSR activities, an impression management strategy, due to the risk of perceived hypocrisy and reputational threats. However, they often lose their chance to inform the audience of their socially responsible efforts (Jauernig and Valentinov, 2019).

On the other hand, CSR-washing is associated with consumers’ confusion and perceived risk, which minimizes consumer trust (Hawlitschek et al., 2018) and elicits suspicion of hypocrisy (Cheah et al., 2023; Pope and Wæraas, 2016). Incongruent CSR communication also negatively affected consumers’ attitudes toward the brand and purchase intentions (Zhang et al., 2018). Today, consumers’ perception of corporations is more rigorous as they are more privy to CSR through media and social media (Ramesh et al., 2019). Moreover, with more CSR communications through marketing and public relations (PR) campaigns, there is an increasing level of skepticism regarding brands’ CSR incentives (Kim and Rim, 2019; Leonidou and Skarmeas, 2017).

Femvertising brands adopting a washing position are more likely to experience backlash from consumers and activists, who may not accept the incongruence between the public declaration and internal programs for women. This is what Pirsch et al. (2007) suggest regarding promotional CSR when “the company is not dedicating a great deal of time or energy to contributing a portion of their assets or resources, and that while it was a good program, it is not as comprehensive” (p. 134). In contrast, institutionalized CSR programs will significantly impact consumer loyalty, intention to purchase, consumer skepticism of the company’s motivation for generating a CSR program, and attitude toward the company (Pirsch et al., 2007). This implies that a longer-term, more comprehensive CSR approach, which engages a broad range of the company’s stakeholders, has a stronger impact on consumers. It also supports Drumwright’s (1996) assertion that the positive effects of particular elements of CSR, while targeted at one stakeholder group, can spill over and influence other stakeholder groups.

However, considering CSR as a key element in brand promotion (Hayes et al., 2022) and its inextricable relationship with the corporate brand image (Lu et al., 2020), both the discreet and washing positions are defective approaches when practicing CSR. Consumers are greatly concerned about ethical and philanthropic CSR. Brands’ social motivation generates a symbolic image in consumers’ minds that positively affects their brand loyalty and purchase intentions (Min et al., 2023; Zasuwa, 2019). However, this is what some of our sport brands with discreet CSR approaches are deprived of. Today, consumption is a symbolic act used by individuals as a tool to express something about themselves (e.g. what they like, and what they want to be). This assertion is supported by the theory of person-organization fit (Kristof, 1996). The theory suggests that the overlap between a consumer’s self-concept and the perceived organizational identity will attract the consumer to the organization due to the easy options it provides for self-expression. In femvertising, the existence of a connection between the CSR advertisement and the individual has shown impact on the perceived authenticity of femvertising. For example, the findings of Hainneville et al. (2023) indicate that participants view femvertising as authentic when they see reflections of themselves within it.

Moreover, one component that leads to customers’ identification with a brand is the attractiveness of the brand’s identity (So et al., 2017). CSR information reveals aspects of the corporate identity that are “not only fundamental and enduring but also often more distinctive by virtue of their disparate and idiosyncratic bases (e.g. egalitarian employment policies, sponsorship of social causes, environmental initiatives)” (Du et al., 2010, p. 10). Such identity-revealing features of CSR likely impact and form the consumers’ evaluations of brand identity (So et al., 2017). Therefore, it is essential for brands with internal programs to fully communicate these efforts through any communication channels and for brands who communicate their philanthropic activities, to back their claims with actions.

Women in leadership positions

Based on previous research showing that positive relationship between having women in leadership roles and the tendency for greater gender equality CSR activities (Cook and Glass, 2018; Setó-Pamies, 2015; Macaulay et al., 2018), we assumed that femvertising brands would have notably more women in leadership at the company (over 50%), but this was not the case for our sport brands. This is an important takeaway as it suggests that companies that demand equal opportunities for women in society have not devoted equal seats for women inside their own companies. Seemingly, sport brands are practicing femvertising as an opportunity to appear equitable while still lacking a deep commitment to gender-equality motives. Future research could address barriers perceived by upper-management female leaders to add additional clarity to these findings.

Implications

First, this study contributes to brands’ social responsibility and CSR communication literature by explaining the extent to which sport brands’ gender equality CSR activities are consistent with their CSR communication. CSR communication is a very delicate matter. While consumers are eager to know about the brands’ goodwill, they also quickly get suspicious of the why behind the brands’ support of causes when companies promote their CSR efforts. The results from this study revealed that some of the femvertising brands are engaged in minimal changes within their companies to support gender equality, which suggests their act of hypocrisy. Similar to the trends in environmentalism, which led to some companies practicing greenwashing advertising, this new trend of gender equality among consumers incites brands to engage in false Femvertising or “fempower-washing” as proposed by Sterbenk et al. (2022). If stakeholders get suspicious of extrinsic motives behind the companies’ prosocial attempts, CSR communication can have a backlash effect. Therefore, CSR communication’s key challenge is overcoming stakeholder skepticism and generating favorable CSR attributions (Connors et al., 2017; Kim and Rim, 2019).

Second, by applying the constructs and postulates of signaling theory within a new context, this study extends the theory’s applicability within the scope of sport femvertising literature. As Zerbini (2017) emphasized, measurable indicators for brands’ CSR attempts can be a determining signal for a brand’s level of commitment to the advertised claim. Femvertising sport brands used this CSR communicating technique to showcase their concerns about gender issues and female empowerment. However, non-femvertising sport companies’ communication strategies were devoid of such attempts, although in some cases, they have surpassed femvertising brands. In marketing, the key reasons for adopting a CSR activity are to increase marketing indexes such as brands’ reputation and credibility (Abu Zayyad et al., 2021; Wang et al., 2021) and consumers’ loyalty (Park et al., 2017; Servera-Francés and Piqueras-Tomás, 2019). Though, embracing an apathetic manner and having no attempt to signal the target market will not result in desired CSR outcomes.

This study also offers implications for practitioners. This research sheds light on sport brands’ practice of femvertising as a CSR/marketing strategy and can guide companies who wish to improve their brand image through CSR. Based on the findings, around 40% of the sport brands (seven out of sixteen) applauded by customers for their claim of commitment to gender equality are engaged in less than half of the CSR activities (internal and external). Considering the level of consumers’ access to the company’s information, brands eager to practice femvertising must establish a solid, female-friendly basis and be willing to make fundamental long-term changes within the corporation before engaging in femvertising. Challenging gender stereotypes and improving female representation in advertising might be an appropriate initial step, but it should not be the only step.

In this study, femvertising sport brands have 40%, and non-femvertising sport brands have 34% of leadership positions dedicated to women. Women in companies’ leadership directly affect how a brand treats and portrays women in multiple areas (Rhode, 2016). If brands attempt to attract female consumers, particularly with empowering messages, they need to substantiate these claims by dedicating more seats in leadership positions to women at the corporate level. Having more feedback from women within the company makes the femvertising attempt more relevant to the female target market. This approach also shows the authenticity of the initiative, which is critical to success.

Limitations and future research

The most notable limitation of this study is the sample size. All the existing sport femvertising brands from 2015 to 2020 were examined, and no other lists were available to draw from. Also, this study sought evidence for each type of CSR activity released by brands’ self-reporting, not the frequency of CSR attempts. Therefore, there is a lack of publicly available information to distinguish the depth of each company’s commitment to the CSR activities. For example, some brands, such as Under Armor and Adidas, engaged deeply in programs and changes to support women in the supply chain, while others only applied one or two efforts. Therefore, future research should analyze the depth of each CSR activity type implemented by brands to evaluate their commitment to gender equality more precisely.

Table 1

List of brands

	Femvertising companies	Non-femvertising companies
1	Under Armor	Skechers
2	DICK’S Sporting Goods	Academy
3	Adidas	Li Ning
4	Nike	FILA
5	ESPN	NBC
6	Gatorade	Red Bull
7	Puma	Columbia
8	Asics	Decker’s
9	Lululemon	Fabletics
10	Reebok	Eddie Bauer
11	Vans	Champion
12	Brooks	Avia
13	New Balance	Callaway Golf
14	Saucony	Vitality
15	Athleta	Gildan
16	Orangetheory Fitness	Peloton

Source(s): Created by the authors

Table 2

List of gender equality related CSR activities

Diversity reporting	• Numbers of women in the leadership pipeline, and women employees
Internal programs + actions	Building an internal talent pipeline for women leaders • Women in leadership pipeline initiatives (e.g. training or mentoring programs) • Measurable goals to increase female representation on board or at leadership/management level • Measurable goals to increase female representation at lower levels of the company • Programs focused on recruiting female workers • Internal events focused on gender issues and empowerment Benefits and human resource support • HR benefits + policy changes aimed at gender equality • Pay equality initiatives or commitments • The company states or changes their policy on hiring process Employee engagement in ensuring gender equality • Employee resource groups (ERGs), affinity groups, mentoring or networking groups for female employees • A committee, employee or department formally coordinating gender diversity and inclusion for the company Operations • Initiatives to work with other businesses, suppliers and partners that are gender-inclusive • Sourcing from women-owned businesses • Support programs for women in the supply chain Training • Gender bias training that goes beyond sexual harassment training
External Programs + Actions	Cause-related marketing • Support for non-profit women’s organizations, NGOs or nonprofits that focus on gender or women’s issues • Company scholarships and grants program (given directly to women) • Company programs that benefit women in the community • Company programs that benefit girls in the community Marketing communications • Producing advertising and marketing campaigns that celebrate women or work to reduce gender stereotypes (beyond the current femvertisement) Product • Diversifying or rethinking product lines aimed at expanding gender reach or addressing gender stereotypes (i.e. dual gender clothing) • Conversing with female consumers to meet their needs Industry • Initiatives that encourage their industry or help other businesses to address gender equality

Source(s): Figure courtesy of Sterbenk et al. (2022)

Table 3

Percentage of women in leadership positions

	Company	Femvertising brand	Women in leadership positions (%)
1	Under Armor	Y	37
2	DICK’S Sporting Goods	Y	26
3	Adidas	Y	35
4	Nike	Y	43
5	ESPN	Y	63
6	Gatorade	Y	42
7	Puma	Y	24
8	Asics	Y	11
9	Lululemon	Y	60
10	Reebok	Y	41
11	Vans	Y	42
12	Brooks	Y	48
13	New Balance	Y	53
14	Saucony	Y	32
15	Athleta	Y	58
16	Orange Theory Fitness	Y	22
17	Skechers	N	20
18	Academy	N	18
19	Li Ning	N	18
20	FILA	N	55
21	NBC	N	36
22	Red Bull	N	33
23	Columbia	N	40
24	Decker’s	N	34
25	Fabletics	N	33
26	Eddie Bauer	N	24
27	Champion	N	61
28	Avia	N	43
29	Callaway golf	N	23
30	Vitality	N	43
31	Gildan	N	26
32	Peloton	N	35

Source(s): Created by the authors