Restaurant menu descriptions: Revisiting McCall and Lynn through word analysis

ABSTRACT

Product descriptions on menus are one of the first signals that shape consumer expectation of food quality and taste. A product’s description can serve as the only mechanism if an item has never been ordered by the consumer, ergo the need to understand how the structure of a description can affect consumer expectations of the food products is warranted. McCall and Lynn (2005) suggest that complex descriptions lead to increased perceptions of quality. This study, through a two-sample, two-pronged process, seeks to explore how the number of adverbs, adjectives, and nouns that describe a product will affect consumer expectations of taste and quality of a product. Results suggest that the number of adjectives can affect the expectations of quality and taste, where the number of nouns only resonates with quality. Adverbs had no significant effect on consumer perceptions. Moreover, a significant interaction between number of adjectives and nouns is explored. The practical implication of these results is discussed with application to the restaurant industry.

KEYWORDS:

• Expected quality
• expected taste
• linguistics
• menus
• restaurants
• syntax