Out of Home Digital Market Food Promotions Research in Scotland report

The study sought to overcome the issue of reliance on perceptions and self-reporting by collecting real-time data on consumer behaviour, accompanied by qualitative data to help explain it. The study was small scale and primarily qualitative in nature. The aim of qualitative research is to identify as much diversity of experience as possible within the target audience, rather than attempting to achieve a sample that is statistically representative of the wider population. The nature of the design means that any findings on links between promotions and ordering behaviours, and the reasons for this, should be taken as indicative. Study limitations are discussed further below. Twenty-nine consumers, who regularly used digital methods to order food and drink from OOH outlets, took part in:

• a four-week online diary task using the Indeemo mobile app (an online video research platform) to record their online orders. (this involved a combination of preset tasks and screen recordings of their mobile phone during the ordering process)
• follow-up in-depth video interviews to further explore and understand the impact that exposure to any digital promotions or marketing strategies had on their ordering behaviours.

Sampling in qualitative research aims to ensure the research captures the range of different views and experiences of an issue, rather than statistical representativeness. The sampling approach was designed to target consumers who have the greatest potential to be influenced by OOH Digital Market promotions and other marketing strategies, defined as those who order from OOH Digital Market at least once a week, and live within Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow (reflecting the profile of the OOH Digital Market in terms of where prevalence of outlets is highest). Sampling was designed to ensure good coverage across key demographic groups, and was skewed towards those living in more deprived areas. The final sample profile is illustrated in the table below.

Table 5.1: Sample profile

[2] The original plan had been to recruit a more even split of men and women. However, recruitment proved challenging and decisions had to be made to prioritise other quotas such as SIMD and having school age children at home.

[3] The original plan had been to recruit people over the age of 61. However, recruitment proved challenging and decisions had to be made to prioritise other quotas such as SIMD and having school age children at home. A person over the age of 61 was recruited but withdrew during fieldwork. 

Participants were recruited to achieve a mix in terms of the digital platforms and websites generally use to order food and drink from the OOH environment. While no firm quotas were set on these, recruitment was monitored to ensure a spread of use of aggregator food delivery apps/websites as well as directly via outlets’ and takeaways’ own websites, and both chain and independent outlets/takeaways.

Recruitment was carried out by a specialist recruitment agency. Recruiters were briefed in advance on the purpose and focus of the study, what participation would involve, confidentiality and data protection, and the voluntary nature of the research. A short screener questionnaire was used to determine participants' suitability for the research, including demographic details and questions on their use of online OOH food delivery/takeaway services.

Given the research sought to capture participants’ behaviours in real time, careful consideration was given to ensuring that, as far as possible, their behaviour did not change as a result of taking part in the study. With this in mind, they were provided with a relatively broad definition of the purpose of the research (ordering takeaway food online) that did not draw attention to the focus on promotions and other marketing strategies. It was also emphasised to participants at the onboarding stage that they should not change their ordering behaviour during the fieldwork period and, in particular, should not feel any pressure to order more often that they would have done otherwise during that time.

Participants were offered a payment of £120 for their participation, with £80 received after completion of the diary task and £40 received for the follow-up interview.

Indeemo diary task

The Indeemo fieldwork period ran from August – November 2024, with participants starting their four-week diaries at different points throughout this time. As part of the recruitment and onboarding process, participants consented to install Indeemo on their mobile phones over the diary task fieldwork period.

Participants were asked to record every takeaway order they made during the four-week period by uploading a mobile phone screen recording of their order being made and completing a short questionnaire attached to each order. The questionnaire (Appendix C) included questions on when and why they decided to order a takeaway, whether their decision was impacted by a promotion, what app/website they used, what outlet they chose and why, and whether there were any leftovers.

The research team closely monitored engagement throughout the fieldwork period in order to pick up on any specific issues. However, reminders were minimised given the risk that they could act as prompts to order takeaway food. Reminders were also sent at times when it was least likely to have an effect on ordering, e.g., mid-week and in the morning. Where participants forgot to screen record their order, they were still invited to complete the questionnaire and attach any relevant screenshots or photos.

Follow-up depth interviews

Following completion of the Indeemo four-week diary task, between September and December, participants took part in an in-depth interview, lasting around an hour and conducted over video (MS Teams or Zoom). The purpose of the interview was to reflect on the orders made throughout the fieldwork period and to discuss wider ordering behaviour, outside of the fieldwork period. Discussion guides were developed to ensure all relevant issues were covered in interviews (Appendix D).

Before conducting the interviews, the research team reviewed each participant’s Indeemo data, including screen recordings. As part of this process, each order was coded (further detail is provided under ‘Analysis’ below), with every instance of a promotion or marketing strategy recorded (where it appeared in the process, what type of promotion or marketing strategy it was and whether it was taken up). Based on this initial analysis, researchers selected the recordings to cover in detail with participants in the interview (there was only time to cover two or three per interview) and prepared tailored follow-up questions on specific elements they wished to explore for each of those orders. These were incorporated into the discussion guide used to structure the interviews. Follow-up questions were asked about the ordering process as participants were invited to walk through the process as the relevant screen recording was shared with them for each order selected for discussion. Across the 29 participants, 58 orders were discussed in interviews.

In the final part of the interview, participants were invited to discuss what they saw as their typical ordering patterns and behaviours, beyond the scope of the orders they made during the course of this research. This allowed for exploration of the extent to which behaviours exhibited during the fieldwork period were typical for participants and provided additional context for analysis.

Indeemo data

Although the study overall took a qualitative approach, the data collected in the Indeemo diary task was quantitative in nature. This included quantitative questions asked prior to each video upload (for example, the reason for ordering and whether orders had been prompted by promotions) as well as the quantitative coding of the screen recordings of orders (for example, the number and type of promotions available at each stage of the order process). This data has been analysed and reported on quantitatively in order to give some sense of the relative importance of different factors in decision making, the relative prevalence of different offer types and their uptake. When interpreting this data, it should, however, be borne in mind that it is not from a representative sample of the Scottish population and is not intended to be used to scale up the findings. 

Analysis of Indeemo data (screen recordings and associated questionnaire) was undertaken using Microsoft Excel. A codeframe was designed to record and analyse each order placed during the fieldwork, alongside demographic data relating to participants (Appendix E). All screen recordings were analysed and coded by the research team. The review of screen recordings involved recording every instance of a promotion or marketing strategy appearing on screen, where in the ordering process the promotion/marketing strategy was encountered (homepage, browsing or basket/checkout page), what type of promotion/marketing strategy it was and whether it was taken advantage of in the order. This allowed us to calculate the total number of promotions and other marketing strategies a participant was exposed to for each order and how and at what points participants utilised them. Promotions and other marketing strategies observed in recordings were coded by strategy type using categorisations commonly used in the OOH Digital Market, as well as others added by the research team, in conjunction with FSS, to cover any promotions or marketing strategies observed that did not fall into an existing category. Codes are shown in the table below. 

Table 5.2: Coding of promotions and other marketing strategies

The impact of promotions or other marketing strategies on the number of calories ordered was assessed if nutritional information was available and participants confirmed during interviews that additional items were ordered directly as a result of them, and where nutritional information for ordered items was also publicly available from the food outlet (See Scope and Limitations below).

Qualitative interview data

The analysis of qualitative data is focused on drawing out themes and understanding the reasons behind behaviours rather than their prevalence. Our approach to qualitative analysis involved data from interviews being summarised into thematic matrices based on the topic guide (including lifestyle and general food behaviours, reviewing specific Indeemo orders, and more general views on ordering from the OOH Digital Market and perceptions on the role of promotions and other marketing strategies).