How online food photos on Instagram influence Thai customers’ attitude and perception towards offline Thai restaurants

The restaurant in Thailand is highly competitive due to low barrier to entry and huge opportunity from increase trend of eating out. In the digitalization era, social media play important role in the customer’s journey so most of businesses in Thailand including restaurant industry are using these channels to market their products and services. Instagram is the social media application made for sharing photos and videos from a smartphone. Consequently, A lot of businesses including restaurant industry in Thailand use this application for marketing and revenue purposes. Therefore, the purpose of this individual study is to investigate compositional elements of good Thai food photos to help the restaurant owners choose the proper photos that match the position of their restaurant and can attract the customers to visit their restaurants. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used in this research. The research was conducted by using Exploratory Research and Causal Research Design as field experiment. The questionnaire was conducted using a (2x2x2) experimental format, a total of eight treatments. 30 respondents were collected for each treatment totaling to 240 respondents. The data analysis for questionnaire were done with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to analyze means, frequency, regression and correlations between variables etc. The Results showed no relationship between customers’ demographic and price perception. But age and education level impact intention to visit the restaurants. In terms of customer behavior, only eat out frequency impacts both price perception and intention to visit the restaurant. In terms of compositional elements of food photo, the most important factor is type of container. It impacts “customers’ belief in quality of food”, “customers’ belief in healthiness of food” and “customers’ belief in good service”. Fancy container is better than plain for all beliefs and price perception. The second important factor is size of container. It affects “customers’ belief in healthiness of food”. Small container is better than big container for this belief and price perception. The least important factor is props in the photo. Although it does not impact customers’ beliefs, photo with food ingredients has more positive effects and is perceived slightly higher price that without food ingredients.

泰国餐饮业因准入门槛较低、外食需求增长带来的巨大商机而竞争激烈。数字化时代下，社交媒体在消费者决策链路中扮演关键角色，泰国包括餐饮业在内的多数商业主体均依托此类渠道开展产品与服务营销。Instagram是一款专为智能手机端分享照片与视频打造的社交媒体应用，因此泰国诸多行业（含餐饮业）均将其用于营销与营收活动。本研究旨在探究优质泰国美食照片的构图要素，助力餐厅经营者选择契合自身品牌定位的照片，以吸引消费者到店消费。本研究采用定性与定量结合的研究方法，以探索性研究与因果研究设计作为田野实验框架开展研究。问卷采用(2×2×2)实验设计，共设置8组实验组，每组回收30份有效问卷，总样本量达240份。问卷数据通过社会科学统计软件包（Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, SPSS）开展分析，涵盖均值、频数、回归分析及变量间相关性分析等内容。研究结果显示：消费者人口统计学特征与价格感知之间无显著关联；但年龄与受教育水平会对消费者的到店意愿产生影响。在消费者行为维度，仅外食频率同时影响价格感知与到店意愿。在美食照片构图要素方面，最重要的影响因素为容器类型：其会显著影响“消费者对食品品质的信任”“消费者对食品健康性的信任”及“消费者对优质服务的信任”；相较于普通容器，精致容器在上述三项信任维度及价格感知上均表现更优。第二重要的影响因素为容器尺寸：其会影响“消费者对食品健康性的信任”；在该信任维度及价格感知上，小容器的表现优于大容器。最次要的影响因素为照片中的道具：尽管道具不会直接影响消费者的各项信任，但搭配食材的照片相较于无食材的照片，能带来更积极的用户评价，且被感知的价格水平略高。