Botelho LV, Freitas JV, da Camara AO, de Almeida IF, Gonçalves TDS, Horta PM, Canella DS, Cardoso LDO. Digital marketing of online food delivery services in a social media platform before and during COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil.
Public Health Nutr 2023;
26:1-11. [PMID:
36213951 PMCID:
PMC11074985 DOI:
10.1017/s1368980022002191]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2022] [Revised: 08/15/2022] [Accepted: 09/21/2022] [Indexed: 01/07/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE
To describe the promotion of food and beverage and marketing strategies used by online food delivery services (OFDS) in a social media platform before and during the pandemic in Brazil.
DESIGN
Publicly available data were extracted from OFDS Instagram accounts. Posts published 6 months immediately before and after the first case of COVID-19 in Brazil were randomly sampled. Two independent authors coded the posts' content. Food and beverage items featured in posts were classified according to the NOVA food system classification. Marketing strategies were coded according to protocols from previous studies.
SETTING
Top three OFDS Instagram accounts in Brazil.
PARTICIPANTS
Posts published in the period studied (n 304).
RESULTS
During the pandemic, the proportion of posts featuring at least one food item decreased from 71·6 % to 40·2 %, and the proportion of ultra-processed foods decreased from 57·6 % to 27·9 %. Before the pandemic, the most widely used marketing strategies were branding elements (80·7 %), product imagery (unbranded) (48·9 %) and partnerships/sponsorship (35·2 %). While during the pandemic, branding elements (62·2 %) continued to be the most applied, but were followed by the use of videos/graphics interchange format/boomerangs (34·1 %) and corporate social responsibility (31·7 %). The most frequent COVID-19 marketing strategies were 'social responsibility in the pandemic' (30·5 %), 'combatting the pandemic' (28·0 %) and 'accelerating digitalisation' (20·7 %).
CONCLUSIONS
OFDS advertisements on a social media platform placed less emphasis on food items, but improved the nutritional quality of foods and beverages featured in posts. A COVID-washing approach was highlighted, especially through the use of social responsibility marketing during the pandemic.
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