Linguistic means to create an image via online advertising (the case of online restaurant menu)

The restaurant industry has reinvented its enterprise with the rise of online information systems. Digital menu represents a kind of advertising communication, creating the atmosphere of a restaurant and forming the image of a dish. This study aims to explore and analyze digital versions of the restaurant menu, which form major selling pages of a restaurant website. The research goal is to consider the linguistic means of creating an advertising image used in restaurants’ menu. According to the author's observation, in the electronic texts of marketing communication, these are linguistic means that dominate and create a verbal image of the advertised product, harmoniously complementing its visual component. The predominance of the verbal advertising images on the menu ensures the reliability of the marketing message, allows choosing persuasive arguments to promote the food business, form the appropriate advertising incentives in the customers’ minds and obtain the required responses. In this regard, the names of dishes, tropes (among which epithets and metaphors are frequent) and phraseological units are particularly relevant in building the restaurant image. Linguistic means contribute to an adequate and complete advertising image that evokes appropriate marketing associations in the consumers’ minds. They contain key information for the users, produce a high emotional and expressive impact on the target audience, and act as a powerful tool for creating the image of the advertised product.