How photos of food make you buy it

In a new study published in the Journal of Business Research, researchers concluded that an attractive photo

Pizza or other menu items can help a restaurant increase sales.This is especially noticeable if you apply the right filter to the image.Discuss

Researchers have found that photos of food with high levels of saturation make people perceive the food as fresher and tastier. Therefore, they are more willing to order these dishes.

However, the plans of restaurant visitors and the distance to food in the photo still play an important role.

During this study, twoonline experiment. The first was attended by 267 people. They had to imagine ordering their own food online. They were then shown pictures of a poke bowl, a Hawaiian dish with pieces of raw marinated fish, vegetables, and sauce on top of rice. Next, each of the participants was randomly shown one of four photos: high saturation, low saturation, a close-up photo, and a photo taken from afar. Volunteers had to rate how appetizing the food looked in the pictures and how likely they were to buy it.

It turned out that in more saturated photos forpeople, the food seemed fresher and tastier. Therefore, they were more likely to order it. True, the effect was even stronger when the food was taken from afar in rich photos.

The second experiment involved 222person. The subjects had to pretend they were browsing Instagram* photos of pizzas from a fictitious Pizza City restaurant. At the same time, they were shown pictures with a high and low level of saturation. They were then told that they would either have to dine alone or with their family. After that, they were again asked to rate the freshness and taste of the pizza in the photo, as well as to say if they were going to order this pizza.

As in the first experiment, it turned out thatfood in a photo with high saturation was perceived by people as fresher and tastier. Therefore, they often wanted to buy it. Moreover, this effect was less noticeable in those who were going to have dinner with their family in the evening, compared to those who would eat alone.

*belongs to Meta – an organization that is recognized as extremist and its activities are prohibited in Russia.