Scroll through your social media feed or tune into a major sporting event, and you’re likely to encounter an advertisement that features women as strong, confident, and diverse. Nike’s “So Win” Super Bowl spot, Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty,” and Under Armour’s “I Will What I Want” are part of a marketing approach known as “femvertising,” which challenges old stereotypes and aligns brand messages with gender equality.
But how do women actually evaluate these ads? Do they see through the messaging when it feels performative? And which specific qualities matter most when consumers decide whether a brand genuinely supports women?
A team of researchers set out to answer these questions by building and testing a measurement tool that captures what women look for in gender-equitable advertising. Their findings, published in the Journal of Business Research, identify six distinct qualities that shape women’s perceptions of femvertising and connect those perceptions to real brand outcomes like loyalty and word-of-mouth recommendations.
The gap between feminist messaging and consumer trust
The study was led by Vu Phuong Uyen Ho, a PhD candidate in the Department of Marketing at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, working with colleagues from Macquarie and the University of Newcastle. The team noticed that while brands have enthusiastically adopted femvertising over the past decade, scholars had studied its individual pieces—authenticity here, empowerment there—without assembling them into a single framework.
That fragmentation matters because not all femvertising is well received. Critics have coined terms like “commodity feminism” and “faux feminism” to describe campaigns that borrow feminist language for commercial gain without backing it up with real action. When a brand’s internal practices clash with its public messaging, consumers often push back.
The researchers drew on self-concept theory, which holds that consumers prefer brands and advertisements that align with how they see themselves or how they want to be seen. Applied to femvertising, the idea is that women are more likely to connect with brands whose ads reflect their values around identity, independence, and equality.
Building a measurement tool from the ground up
The team designed a five-phase project to identify, measure, and test the dimensions of what they call “perceived femvertising.” They started with a review of academic literature and industry reports, then surveyed 37 women who had recently viewed and bought from brands running femvertising campaigns. Participants described what made an ad feel supportive of women and shared memorable examples.
From this groundwork, the researchers drafted an initial pool of 70 survey items, which they trimmed and refined through feedback from marketing scholars, practitioners, and additional women consumers. They then ran two larger surveys, each with women in the United States who had recently seen femvertising from major sportswear brands such as Nike and Adidas and made purchases from those companies.
The first survey, with 283 respondents, used a statistical technique called exploratory factor analysis to see which questionnaire items grouped together naturally. The second survey, with 289 respondents, used more rigorous confirmatory tests to lock in the final structure. The researchers sportswear consumers because those brands invest heavily in femvertising, meaning participants would likely have genuine exposure to evaluate.
The six qualities that define femvertising
After the analyses, six distinct dimensions emerged, each capturing a different aspect of what women look for:
Authenticity: Do the ads portray women honestly, sincerely, and in a believable way, without heavy editing or unrealistic standards?
Commitment: Does the brand show real action supporting women’s rights, progress, and inclusion, rather than just talking a good game?
Empowerment: Are women shown as confident, ambitious, self-reliant decision-makers?
Compliance: Do the ads meet industry standards and ethical guidelines for fair gender representation?
Representation: Do the ads feature women from a range of backgrounds, identities, and appearances?
Transformation: Do the ads challenge outdated gender norms and push for long-term social change?
An earlier seventh dimension, “respect,” got folded into other categories during the analysis because it overlapped significantly with empowerment and compliance. The researchers also found that all six remaining dimensions were necessary conditions, meaning a brand can’t simply excel on one while ignoring others and expect to be seen as truly practicing femvertising.
Connecting perception to brand performance
The researchers tested whether their scale actually predicts business outcomes that matter. They looked at three: “share of time with ads” (how much time a consumer spends watching a brand’s ads relative to competitors’), brand loyalty, and brand advocacy (willingness to recommend and speak positively about the brand).
Positive perceptions of femvertising were linked to all three outcomes. The analysis also showed an interesting sequence: when women perceived a brand’s femvertising favorably, they spent more time engaging with its ads, and that increased attention was linked to stronger loyalty and advocacy. In a fragmented media environment where attention is scarce, getting consumers to linger matters.
The team also ran an “importance-performance” analysis to identify which dimensions matter most for which outcomes. Commitment and compliance drove the most attention. Empowerment and compliance were strongest for loyalty. Authenticity, commitment, compliance, and empowerment all contributed meaningfully to brand advocacy.
What this means for brands
For marketing teams, the study offers a practical diagnostic tool. The full 24-item scale can be used to audit campaigns, and the researchers also developed a condensed six-item version that retains strong predictive power for quick check-ins. Managers working with limited budgets can prioritize the dimensions most linked to their specific goals, rather than trying to do everything at once.
A few caveats are worth noting. The study focused on women consumers in the United States who had engaged with sportswear brands, so findings may not translate directly to other industries, cultures, or audiences. The researchers call for follow-up work examining how men respond to femvertising, how it performs in different cultural contexts, and how newer formats like AI-generated influencers affect message credibility.
Still, the central takeaway is clear: women can tell the difference between brands that authentically support gender equality and those using feminist language as decoration. Getting all six ingredients right is what separates advertising that resonates from advertising that falls flat.
