Does watching others eat in videos make you buy? Food eating videos and their relationships to food purchase.

Young people globally are increasingly watching food eating videos. Researchers do not yet understand why individuals watch these videos when they are eating and what impact they have on the watcher. This study investigates the relationships between food choice motives (specifically mood), attitudes towards the video, attitudes towards the vlogger, purchase intention, food neophobia, and sensitivity to visual food cues by applying the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The study was conducted in two phases: a qualitative content analysis and an experimental design. The content analysis phase analyzed the comments of 16 food eating videos on Chinese social media. It showed that audiences may have different attitudes, consumption patterns and eating habits. Three types of audiences were identified by explorative typology: psychological pleasure seekers, common point seekers, and eating desire eliminators. Based on the content analysis findings, an independent measures design was used to randomly assign participants to two groups (n=269) to answer self-administered online questionnaires. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, linear regression, and moderated regression analysis. Results show that audiences’ attitude towards the video is a predictor of purchase intention. Food neophobia moderates the relationships between mood and the viewer’s attitudes towards the video; it also moderates the relationship between the viewer’s attitudes towards the vlogger and purchase intention. Sensitivity to visual food cues is found to have a mild moderating effect on the relationship between the viewer’s attitude towards the vlogger and purchase intention. This research is different from previous research because it uses the TPB rather than counteractive-control theory, which focuses on audiences’ purchase intention rather than food intake. It also focuses exclusively on mood as a food choice motive. This study’s findings fill the gap between theory and practice and demonstrate that watching food eating videos can impact audiences’ purchase intention. Marketers can use the findings to maximize their profits while policymakers and health associations could establish new guidelines for vloggers to encourage healthy eating habits in their audiences.