Article

The true effects of food photos: part 2

The prevalence of social media photo marketing campaigns in food service raises an interesting question: Do consumers really feel satisfaction and happiness from posting pictures on social media of their restaurant experiences?

August 2, 2016 by Matthew Harper — Intern, Networld Media Group

As you read in yesterday's initial part of this series, Wendy’s and Bruster’s both are using social media photo campaigns to further their marketing strategies. Wendy's uses this approach to help children in foster care, while Bruster's uses the same technique to connect with customers, putting them in the spotlight and giving them a chance to win free ice cream.

Wendy's and Bruster's are just two examples of the numerous brands that use this technique. The sheer prevalence of social media photo-based marketing campaigns in food service prompts a question: Do these campaigns work?

A fascinating discovery

At first, the research into this question seems to indicate nothing but positives. For instance, a recent studyfound that taking pictures of items,events and experiences, causes a human to feel joy.

"Experiences are vital to the lives and well-being of people; hence, understanding the factors that amplify or dampen enjoyment of experiences is important," the study's abstract said earlier this year. "One such factor is photo-taking, which has gone unexamined by prior research even as it has become ubiquitous. We identify engagement as a relevant process that influences whether photo-taking will increase or decrease enjoyment."

The study examined situations where pictures could be taken, one of which was in a restaurant where patrons took pictures of their food. The research concluded that enjoyment escalated as the shutters clicked.

However, in an interview, study co-author Kristin Diehl pointed out that some restaurants have actually banned photography completely because, the owners asserted, photo-taking distracted from the overall enjoyment of the meal.

"I think partially why people have this intuition that it should take you out of the experience is partly because people immediately Instagram it and text it and get wrapped up in that experience — and none of that was in our studies," she said.

So, the research proves only that taking pictures increases enjoyment. It did not examine the impact of posting those photos to social media.

The studys' authors wrote, "Across three field and six lab experiments, we find that taking photos enhances enjoyment of positive experiences across a range of contexts and methodologies.This occurs when photo-taking increases engagement with the experience, which is less likely when the experience itself is already highly engaging, or when photo-taking interferes with the experience."

The take-home for restaurateurs is that while diners' consumer's engagement increases when they take pictures of their restaurant experience, it's quite possible that many will find the interference of re-posting the picture online to actually end up detracting from their restaurant visit. Posting their experiences on social mediaincreases customers' engagement with your brand and provide some exposure online, but it can also often draw customers' attention away from the food and the fun and toward whatever they're doing online.

What's your photo restaurant campaign experience?

Fastcasual.com would love to hear some tales from the field regarding this issue. That's why we invite all readers to send us information about any campaigns related to this subject you've conducted and their results. Please send any stories, successes, failures or lessons learned regarding this topic and your restaurant tomatthewh@networldmediagroup.com, before Wednesday, Aug. 31. We will then report back to you on some of the overall findings experienced inside your establishments.

About Matthew Harper

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Matthew Harper is in the Seminary Track program at Boyce College, and is nearing completion of his M.Div. at Southern Seminary  He works at the campus writing center where he provides feedback and edits student papers. He interned in the editorial department at Networld Media Group for two years, and won a national award in a student short story competition. He attends and serves at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville and hopes to one day pursue ministry overseas.