Abstract

As consumer’s lifestyle culture changes and the home meal replacement market grows, various types of home meal replacement that are distinguished by the cooking process are emerging. Therefore, this study confirmed consumer decision making through the comparison of home meal replacement packages. This study examines the effect of product photography of packages that activate different mental simulations according to the type of home meal replacement on consumers. In addition, we tried to verify the psychological mechanism by confirming the mediating effect of the process-enjoyment through the process of making the effect of process simulation on purchase intention in the complex process of home meal replacement. In this study, The experiment was conducted using 2(Home Meal Replacement Types: Mealkit vs. Retort) x 3(Mental Simulation Types: Process vs. Result vs. Control) between participants design. As a result of the study, in mealkit, purchase intention was higher than the other two conditions in the process simulation condition, and in retort, purchase intention was higher than the other two conditions in the control condition, indicating an interaction between home meal replacement type and mental simulation. In addition, the process simulation conditions significantly influenced the purchase intention by moderated mediating the process-enjoyment, which only appeared in mealkit and not in retort, confirming the moderated mediating effect. Accordingly, This study is expected to be meaningful to researchers and marketing practitioners in that it is necessary to use product photos that can activate different mental simulations in packages. Furthermore the psychological mechanism of process-enjoyment felt by consumers in the imagination.