Slow motion, fast impact: enhancing food video marketing with cinematic techniques

Purpose While the significance of food videos is widely acknowledged, the hospitality literature offers little guidance on video design strategies that enhance marketing power. Focusing on video motion, this paper aims to examine how slow (vs. regular) motion shapes the marketing effectiveness of food videos, particularly considering consumers’ dietary status and gender. Design/methodology/approach Four studies were conducted, including a field study on social media and three experimental studies across varied food categories, to capture consumers’ food perceptions and behavioral outcomes. Findings The findings demonstrate that dietary status and gender jointly moderate the slow-motion effects in food video marketing. Specifically, for dieting females, slow (vs regular) motion induces greater marketing effectiveness, yet this difference was mitigated among non-dieting females. The advantage of slow motion is also attenuated among males, regardless of their dietary status. Immersion and narrative transportation were identified as the serial mediators explaining these effects. Practical implications This research suggests that slow motion boosts marketing effectiveness for dieting females but not for non-dieting females or male consumers. Findings offer hospitality marketers practical guidance regarding how to effectively leverage video motion as a marketing strategy by targeting the right consumers. Originality/value While previous research on non-food products emphasizes the superiority of slow motion in marketing, this research focuses on food videos and reveals that the positive slow-motion effects are contingent on consumers’ dietary status and gender, offering valuable insights into food video marketing.