Millennials are technologically and visually-oriented, preferring pictures over words (Connaway et al., 2008; Crawling, 2015). Millennial preference for pictures is relevant to menu evaluation, especially given the lack of research about the role that pictures play in menus. While pictures are recommended to be selectively placed in menus (McCall and Lynn, 2008), there is a void in the literature regarding how pictures and verbal information impact menu evaluation (Hou et al., 2017), especially given mandatory calorie labeling requirements (King and Shu, 2016). Existing research has examined symbols placed next to food items such as hearts, thumbs up, and traffic lights on influencing heathy food selections (McCall and Lynn, 2008), but to date no studies have considered the role of the image of the healthful item, like the image of a salad, in influencing purchase intention. Thus, there is a gap in the literature in understanding Millennials' menu evaluation of the healthful fast food menu items they eat on a regular basis. Given that restaurant menus influence behavioral intentions (Fakih et al., 2016), the goal of this paper is to examine Millennials' perceptions of different menu options to see how purchase intention changes based upon the item description with presentation of: (1) healthful image, (2) listing of calories with no image, and (3) healthful image with calories.
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