The Influence of Rich Media (Video) Versus Infographics on Consumer Valuation of Cheese Attributes: Evidence from a Non-Hypothetical Choice Experiment

As fluid milk consumption declines, small US dairies are turning to premium cheeses and target marketing to improve margins. While richer media formats (e.g. videos) are known to boost consumer engagement, there is still a lack of evidence on how well it translates to consumer willingness to pay (WTP), for cheese attributes such as retail location, origin, color, cattle breed, and farmstead. To address this gap, we conducted an incentivized discrete choice experiment with 110 participants, who were randomly assigned to either a rich media (video) or infographic treatments. We estimated consumer preferences using the mixed-logit model and derived WTP estimates. Our findings reveal that both treatments increased WTP for cheese with in-state origins, Holstein milk and farm-direct retailers when compared to out of state origins, breed unspecified, and grocery stores respectively. Color and farmstead attributes did not influence consumer choices. The video treatment significantly increased WTP for the farm-direct retail (over grocery stores) to $1.44 versus $0.8 under the infographic treatment. Conversely, the infographic treatment raised WTP for the Holstein breed attribute (over breed unspecified) to $1.38, compared to $0.82 under the video treatment. Our findings hold under WTP-space estimation, regret minimization models, and balance tests. These findings show that media richness differentially amplifies attribute valuations, suggesting dairies use attribute tailored marketing strategies to boost revenue.