Analyzing aesthetics, attractiveness and color of gastronomic images for user engagement

Abstract

Foodstragramming refers to how people share images of food through social media in order to have an impact on potential consumers. Hence, foodstragramming images is a way for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to create loyal customers and promote gastronomic tourism.

An approach for analyzing foodstragramming images is presented in this paper and also their related comments published by the Getcookingcanada Instagram account, which belongs to a cooking school. The S-O-R (Stimulus-Organism-Response) model is used to study the emotions and impact on viewers of these Instagram images. Our approach evaluates the user’s preferences according to the gastronomic images and their comments and number of likes. The approach suggests possible moods or emotions that a user can have when looking at these gastronomic images based in the colors of the images, and also it studies the sentiment elicited from the comments. The analysis was performed using a variance-based structural equation modeling method called Partial Least Squares (PLS).

The obtained results show a structural model between the sentiment associated to the comments, the number of likes, and moods or emotions that can be extracted from each image. Images that evoke a positive sentiment also have a higher number of likes and comments. Also, it is shown that gastronomic images evoke the adjectives Romantic and Healthy due to the food color of the images. These adjectives produce a positive sentiment, which drive a positive behavioral intention.