Picturing food: the visual style of teen-targeted food marketing

Purpose Despite the pervasiveness of teen-targeted food advertising on social media, little is known about the persuasive elements (or power) found within those ads. This research study aims to engage with the concept of “visual style” to explore the range of visual techniques used in Instagram food marketing to teenagers. Design/methodology/approach A participatory study was conducted with 57 teenagers, who used a specially designed mobile app to capture images of the teen-targeted food marketing they encountered for seven days. A visual thematic analysis was used to assess and classify the advertisements that participants captured from Instagram and specifically tagged with “visual style”. Findings A total of 142 food advertisements from Instagram were tagged with visual style, and classified into five main styles: Bold Focus, Bespoke, Absurd, Everyday and Sensory. Research limitations/implications This study contributes to an improved understanding about how the visual is used as a marketing technique to capture teenagers’ attention, contributing to the persuasive power of marketing messages. Originality/value Food marketing is a significant part of the young consumer’s marketplace, and this study provides new insight into the sophisticated nature of such marketing – revealing the visual styles used to capture the attention of its brand-aware audience.