Food for thought: Consumers' responses to superfood presentation in the digital age

<p>The purpose of this study is to understand how consumers respond to visual cues in the digital presentation of superfoods and how this may influence consumption choices and behaviour. By gaining a deeper understanding of responses to visual cues, insights will be generated into superfood and food presentation, allowing the importance of healthy food presentation to be further understood. This understanding is especially important given the concern over health issues such as obesity in the developed world. Ten in-depth semi-structured interviews using photo elicitation (with a total of 40 participant images and four researcher-provided images) were conducted and analysed via theoretical thematic analysis. The study found the superfood movement has been fuelled by the digital space, and accepted and embraced by contemporary consumers with high food involvement. These consumers place importance on the non-materialistic aspects of superfood consumption, emphasising the hedonic experience and symbolic value. Visual cues, such as bright, vibrant colours, white plateware and natural crockery, ingredients, interesting and colourful garnishing and a background story, all influence a food image to be perceived as more attractive. The study suggests that the exposure to countless glamourised digital images may be changing contemporary consumers’ food relationships, perceptions, expectations and how we interact with food. Such findings add to theory by identifying responses to the superfood movement, exploring the context of the digital landscape, and highlighting the relationship between superfoods, digital images and utilitarian, symbolic and hedonic consumption. This study suggests to policy makers the need for more regulation online and to focus on the non-materialistic elements and nutritional elements when encouraging healthy consumption. For brands and influencers in the food industry, more emphasis should be placed on the non-materialistic elements of consumption, while still including utilitarian elements such as food’s nutritional value.</p>

Food for thought: Consumers' responses to superfood presentation in the digital age

<p>The purpose of this study is to understand how consumers respond to visual cues in the digital presentation of superfoods and how this may influence consumption choices and behaviour. By gaining a deeper understanding of responses to visual cues, insights will be generated into superfood and food presentation, allowing the importance of healthy food presentation to be further understood. This understanding is especially important given the concern over health issues such as obesity in the developed world. Ten in-depth semi-structured interviews using photo elicitation (with a total of 40 participant images and four researcher-provided images) were conducted and analysed via theoretical thematic analysis. The study found the superfood movement has been fuelled by the digital space, and accepted and embraced by contemporary consumers with high food involvement. These consumers place importance on the non-materialistic aspects of superfood consumption, emphasising the hedonic experience and symbolic value. Visual cues, such as bright, vibrant colours, white plateware and natural crockery, ingredients, interesting and colourful garnishing and a background story, all influence a food image to be perceived as more attractive. The study suggests that the exposure to countless glamourised digital images may be changing contemporary consumers’ food relationships, perceptions, expectations and how we interact with food. Such findings add to theory by identifying responses to the superfood movement, exploring the context of the digital landscape, and highlighting the relationship between superfoods, digital images and utilitarian, symbolic and hedonic consumption. This study suggests to policy makers the need for more regulation online and to focus on the non-materialistic elements and nutritional elements when encouraging healthy consumption. For brands and influencers in the food industry, more emphasis should be placed on the non-materialistic elements of consumption, while still including utilitarian elements such as food’s nutritional value.</p>

Attribute specification effect on hedonic and utilitarian options

Integrating ideas and theories from the numerosity effect and utilitarian/hedonic consumption, this research explores how hedonic and utilitarian attributes specified with contracted and expanded specifications affect consumer preferences. Results from two experiments indicate an expanded utilitarian attribute enhances consumer preference for choosing the utilitarian option. However, an expanded hedonic attribute does not influence preference for choosing the hedonic option. The relative perceived guilt of the hedonic option and the perceived attractiveness of the utilitarian option mediate the effect. Acquisition format (purchase vs windfall) moderates this effect by influencing consumers’ perceived guilt from choosing the hedonic option. JEL Classification: C91, D12, M31

An Investigation of a Frontal Negative Slow Wave in a Virtual Hedonic Purchase Task

There is a connection between the frontal negative slow wave (FNSW) and the arousal inhibition in the hedonic purchase context. To calculate the FNSW (400–800 ms), event-related potentials (ERPs) method was applied to depict the neural substrates on prudent and impulsive consumers’ behaviors within various states of promotion. Promotion types include the pure price promotion and the mixed promotion (a mixture of a charitable donation and a discount). Behaviorally, consumers response more quickly in the pure price promotion condition and they express a preference for the mixed promotion. More importantly, a larger FNSW emerged in the impulsive consumers than the prudent, suggesting that the former might tend to control their eagerness to consume hedonic items. Compared with the price promotion as the worse option, the mixed promotion as the better option caused more perceptual conflict, leading to an increase in N2 amplitude. It suggests that consumers incline to reject the worse offers. These results also reveal that people primarily have to search negative promotion information by their insight and subsequently impulsive consumers inhibit the responses to the promotion information. The method of ERPs and FNSW should be helpful for marketing researchers and professionals on hedonic consumption and sales promotion.