Designing the best avatar to reach millennials: gender differences in a restaurant choice

Purpose The two major purposes of this paper are as follows: first, to identify those appropriate key attributes that a commercial avatar promoting a leisure service must have in terms of likeability, expertise, credibility and attractiveness, with the final purpose of stimulating millennials' acceptance (emotions, buying intentions and electronic word of mouth [eWOM]) and second, to compare if men and women expect the same attributes in a successful avatar. Design/methodology/approach A three avatar designs were prepared for this experiment. Then, they were presented to the respondents to be evaluated changing the order of appearance for avoiding biases: (attractive/likeable, expert/credible and normal/basic avatars). The participants were recruited using an online procedure. The final sample size was 104 consumers. They provided 302 valid responses about the three different avatars. A restaurant chain Chili's in Peru was used to define this experiment. Findings Findings of the study indicated that the design attributes of an avatar and the desired effects were related terms. Second, an expert/credible avatar worked better than an atractive/likeable one and also better than a common avatar, especially among the feminine target. Originality/value This paper tries to develop a guide for executives or entrepreneurs immersed in the gastronomic field in Peru, to enable them to make appropriate decisions regarding the definition of an attractive and disruptive web page design with an innovative tool: efficient commercial avatars.