Ethnic Restaurants: Bringing Uniqueness to the Table Through Handwriting

Abstract

While the restaurant industry is seeing an unprecedented rise of ethnic restaurants, the existing hospitality literature provides little guidance on how to enhance perceived uniqueness of ethnic menu offerings through visual design. The present research offers an innovative marketing strategy (i.e., using real handwriting in menus) to boost consumer evaluations. From a consumer behavior perspective, we examine the impact of menu style (handwriting vs. print) and the moderating roles of restaurant busyness (busy vs. non-busy) and gender (female vs. male) on consumers’ menu processing. Findings of this research show that handwriting offers a competitive advantage when the restaurant is less busy and when the consumer is a male. Moreover, the moderated mediation results reveal that perceived uniqueness of ethnic menu offerings is the underlying mechanism explaining the impact of menu style, busyness, and gender on consumer attitudes toward the menu. Theoretical and managerial implications for hospitality managers are discussed.

Optimizing Handwritten Font Style to Connect With Customers

“…Font styles are a vital component of message design in brand logos, packages, menus, advertisements, welcome messages, and websites (F. F. Chen et al, 2021; Childers & Jass, 2002; Grohmann et al, 2013; Hagtvedt, 2011; Liu et al, 2019; Magnini & Kim, 2016; Schroll et al, 2018; Shih et al, 2019).…”

“…Font styles are a vital component of message design in brand logos, packages, menus, advertisements, welcome messages, and websites (F. F. Chen et al, 2021;Childers & Jass, 2002;Grohmann et al, 2013;Hagtvedt, 2011;Liu et al, 2019;Magnini & Kim, 2016;Schroll et al, 2018;Shih et al, 2019). The implications of font style choices are immense, spanning brand memory (Childers & Jass, 2002), brand personality (Grohmann et al, 2013;Liu et al, 2019), and brand attachment (Schroll et al, 2018).…”

“…Nonetheless, consumers value the human touch and a sense of warmth in hospitality services. A sense of the human touch with handwritten font styles can induce favorable attitudes toward companies (F. F. Chen et al, 2021; Liu et al, 2019; Schroll et al, 2018).…”

“…Nonetheless, consumers value the human touch and a sense of warmth in hospitality services. A sense of the human touch with handwritten font styles can induce favorable attitudes toward companies (F. F. Chen et al, 2021;Liu et al, 2019;Schroll et al, 2018). Thus, many hospitality businesses, such as the Hilton London Hyde Park and The Peninsula in Beijing, use a handwritten typeface or handwritten cards to welcome guests and convey warmth (see Appendix A).…”

How companies use typeface design to engage consumers in charitable activities

“…In order for the advertisement to reach its target consumers, choosing an appropriate typeface design is critical. Researchers have demonstrated that typeface design (i.e., handwritten vs. typewritten typeface) influences consumers' attitudes and perceptions in such domains as menu design (Chen et al, 2021; Liu et al, 2019), customer service (Ren et al, 2018; Roschk & Gelbrich, 2017), product label design (Izadi & Patrick, 2020; Schroll et al, 2018), and online reviews (Tassiello et al, 2018) (see Table 1 for related literature and findings). In the field of charitable appeals, however, research on the impact of typeface design has been lacking.…”