Food porn on Instagram: Only a feast for the eye or also valuable for restaurants? An experimental study on the comparative effects of food-related user-generated images and marketer-generated images on restaurant brands, examining the moderating role of restaurant luxuriousness and type of post.

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2021-06-25
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en
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With user-generated content (UGC), consumers are gaining control over the creation of brand meaning, whereas brands are losing it, due to declining trust in marketer-generated content. Little is known about the impact of user-generated images (UGI), as a form of UGC, on observers of those images. Since UGI are numerous in the Food & Beverage Industry, this study compares the effects that food-related UGI and marketer-generated images (MGI) have on millennial observers concerning consumer-based brand equity (CBBE), benign envy, restaurant visiting intention and willingness to pay. In a 3 (consumer UGI post vs. brand UGI repost vs. brand MGI post) x 2 (fine dining vs. casual dining) between-subjects experiment, the moderating roles of restaurant luxuriousness and type of post were also examined. The results show that, compared to MGI, UGI only have a more positive impact on CBBE in terms of brand expectations, and not for the other outcome variables. Restaurant luxuriousness moderates the effect of UGI and MGI on CBBE, restaurant visiting intention and willingness to pay: it is more positive for more luxurious restaurants. CBBE is more positively impacted by UGI for fine dining restaurants, but for casual dining restaurants MGI are more beneficial. Type of post did not moderate the effect of food-related images on observers. In practice, these findings can enhance the effectiveness of restaurants’ Instagram marketing strategies.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen
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