Perceptions of the child

Respondents were given three statements about the child and asked to evaluate if it described the situation: ‘The child is happy’, ‘The child is healthy’, ‘The child is well behaved’. There were no statistical differences in responses between vignettes depicted with a mother versus a father. Nor were there statistical differences in responses between millennial and non-millennial parents. However, based on the gender of the respondent, male respondents were more likely to describe the child as healthy (Table 6.10), as were respondents from the US (Table 6.11).

6.7 Discussion

The Phase One study examined the consumer window of influence of families in fast-food restaurants. With an average of 1 minute and 39 seconds from when the family first enters the restaurant to when they begin to order their food, any in-restaurant interventions must be timely and creative in order to disrupt this rapid, emotionally neutral, ordering process. The study was conducted during peak weekend meal ordering times for families. As such, these times are likely a high estimate of the ordering time. During lower customer volume times, the in-restaurant time in line would be expected to be shorter.

Using restaurant employees to further engage families in the ordering experience or to market new items at the point of purchase would have operational implications for the restaurants. Only 12% of children were observed to interact with the order taker. In this study, as in the study by Castro et al. (2016), parents placed most of the orders at the

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counter (with the exception for older children). In addition, customers that ordered a child meal bundle had a longer ordering process, perhaps due to more decisions required for that particular order.

The restaurant in which this study was carried out also had digital ordering kiosks, where customers could order food without waiting in line to speak with an order taker at the front counter. While the focus of the research was on families and their ordering experience, during the testing phase of the study, time was spent observing the kiosk ordering process. The kiosk orders were not broadly adopted by consumers, with less than 6% of the customers observed using the kiosks, and very few families were seen using the kiosk ordering system.

While kiosks could be a potential vehicle to create an interactive consumer experience that allows for in-restaurant interventions, the kiosks were positioned at adult height. If a young child wanted to place their own order at the kiosk, the parent would have to physically lift the child in order for the child to use the kiosk.

Nothwehr et al. (2013) tested interventions of in-restaurant signage (table and window signs) to influence in-restaurant ordering behaviour. They saw only small changes in ordering behaviour. Lopez et al. (2017) also conducted pilot studies on interventions on the in-restaurant ordering process to encourage healthier choices in two fast-food locations (staff prompts and in-restaurant posters). While simple signage might offer a potential low-cost nudging opportunity, implementation by the restaurants proved to be a significant challenge. Many small nudges may well create a larger cumulative effect on ordering behaviour.

Despite a Canadian consumer population with a high density of smartphones (Catalyst, 2017)and advances in technologies enabling restaurants to target consumers through tools such as geofencing and push-notifications to smartphones, the low in-restaurant customer usage of technology during the ordering process suggests that consumer acceptance of offers delivered through mobile technology are still early in the adoption curve. In the future, with the growing rapid increase in mobile technology use for pre- ordering fast foods, this approach holds significant potential for implementing nudging strategies in a time sensitive process.

The Phase Two study explored peer perceptions of family dining in fast food restaurants. Tanner et al. (2014) explored perception differences in terms of fathers and gender. They also noted very different perceptions in terms of maternal and paternal attributes.

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restaurants for their children (age 5 - 8 years). However, they have higher behaviour expectations and that more quality time with family is an important factor in eating-out, but a limitation of their study was lack of father insights.

In the vignette study, with the aim of exploring perceptions of fathers, respondents viewed fathers dining with their children in fast-food restaurants more favourably than when mothers were depicted in the same vignette. Fathers were praised for spending time with their children. Respondents were more likely to consider the father to be ‘a good parent’, ‘a responsible parent’, and that they are ‘taking good care of the child’.

The more positive perceptions of fathers versus mothers, in the exact same vignette, offers an insight into how society perceives parents (and parenting) based on their gender (Figure 6.4). Male respondents typically viewed the parent in the vignette more favourably in terms of parenting style and parenting perceptions, with the exception of weight. In terms of weight, male respondents were more likely to say that both the child and the parent in the vignette were overweight. This observation that fathers noted the weight issue more than mothers was unexpected, however Kasparian et al. (2017) noted in their study that mothers were not necessarily accurate in assessing the weight of their own children, suggesting perhaps there was social desirability in their responses.

Increasing obesity has been a concern in all four of the countries. The frequency of families dining in fast-food restaurants has also been increasing in these four countries. Despite these fast-food visits now being a regular meal occurrence for many, they were still viewed by 25% as a ‘treat’ occasion in the vignette study. McGuffin et al. (2015) suggest that viable menus to ensure success of healthier eating must maintain the ‘treat’ element of the occasion.

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Figure 6.4 Overall scores when participants were asked how they preceived either the parent or the child based on the gender of the parent portrayed in the vignette. Hatched slice indicates: “does not describe the situation at all”; white slice indicates: describes the situation a little”; light grey slice indicates: “describes the situation to some extent”; dark grey indicates: “describes the situation to a moderate extent”; black slice indicates: “describes the situation to a large extent”. The male (♂) vignette is indicated by blue hatches, while the female (♀) vignette is indicated by red hatches.

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Culturally, respondents from Australia, Canada, and the UK had statistically similar

responses for 18 of the 20 attribute statements. Respondents from the US had statistically different responses from these three countries. Was this difference a result of the higher number of QSR restaurants present in the US, perhaps making a fast-food meal more of an everyday option? Additional research would help to explore why respondents from the US tend to view family dining in fast-food restaurants more favourably than respondents from the other three countries.

In the past, nutrition has been identified as one of the top concerns facing millennial parents (Barkley, 2013), with ‘daycare’ holding the number one spot. Millennial parents appeared to take a strong, but not extreme, position on the topic of nutrition and are probably less restrictive in what they allow their children to eat than what they say they allow them to eat. This is aligned with the findings in the current study, where only 19% of respondents associated fast-food dining with unhealthy food decisions.

Convenience has long been given as one of the key reasons that families visit fast-food restaurants (Rydell et al. 2008). Family dining outside of the home is frequently viewed as a ‘treat’, with ‘healthy’ eating not the key priority for many parents, during what they consider are quality ‘family time’ occasions (McGuffin et al. 2015; Robson et al., 2016). The importance of ‘convenience’ was also reflected in the survey by Harrington et al.

(2013), which found that although it was an important factor in QSR visits, it was not as high a priority as food safety and cleanliness. The theme of ‘convenience’ was mentioned by 9% of respondents in the current survey, aligned with previous studies on the

importance of ‘convenience’ and ‘family time’. ‘Family time’ was mentioned by 25% of the respondents, perhaps reflecting the growing role that fast-food restaurants are fulfilling as a ‘third place’ for families (Oldenburg, 1989).