Restaurant-visit intention: Do anthropomorphic cues, brand awareness and subjective social class interact?

Purpose: Given the increasing need after the outbreak of COVID-19 to encourage restaurant customers to dine in, the purpose of this paper is to examine the effects that anthropomorphic cues jointly with brand awareness and subjective social class have on restaurant-visit intention. Design/methodology/approach: To better comprehend the use of anthropomorphic cues, this paper involved two studies that used two types of anthropomorphic cues: (1) non-food (a spoon) and (2) food ingredients. For each study, a 2 × 2 mixed factorial design was used. Findings: Using three-way mixed ANOVAs, the results from Study 1 confirmed that adding anthropomorphic cues to a non-food object (a spoon) could induce positive effects for restaurants with lower brand awareness, especially among individuals with low subjective social class. In contrast, Study 2 showed that adding anthropomorphic cues to a food ingredient (e.g. tomato, lettuce and olive) had a weaker effect on restaurants with high brand awareness, especially among individuals with a high subjective social class. Practical implications: Marketers should use anthropomorphism strategies based on their target customers, especially if their brand is less popular. Originality/value: Using the theoretical framework from the elaboration likelihood model, this paper contributes to the anthropomorphism literature by showing how an anthropomorphized image that fits an individual’s interests could trigger a careful thinking process that leads to differential behaviors based on brand awareness. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Influence of solitary or commensal dining advertisements on consumers’ expectations of and attitudes toward foods and restaurants

We conducted two studies to investigate how restaurant advertisements depicting different types of eating scenarios (commensal vs. solitary dining) might influence consumers’ expectations of and attitudes toward the foods and restaurants after they were reminded of the pandemic. Participants expected that the foods shown in the advertisements of commensal dining would be more palatable and likable than the same foods depicted in the advertisements of solitary dining. They also showed more positive attitudes toward both the restaurants and foods. The enhanced hedonic expectations induced by the advertisements depicting commensal dining, however, were modulated by the priming for COVID-19 salience. Collectively, these findings suggest that consumers’ preference for commensal dining can be extended to the advertisements depicting such eating scenarios, but this effect could be attenuated by consumers’ awareness of the pandemic. These findings provide insight into restaurant advertisement design and highlight the negative effect of the pandemic on consumers.