Executive Summary
Obesity has increased at an alarming rate over the past 20 years, and this trend is likely to continue. Currently, 67% of all adults in the United States are overweight, and 33% are obese. In general, consumer research addressing the obesity issue has proceeded along two lines: It either examines the role of external information (e.g., nutrition labeling, claims and disclosures in advertisements), or it investigates internal characteristics of consumers (e.g., knowledge about health, nutrition, and motivation). Work on internal characteristics, such as objective nutrition knowledge and motivation to search for information, can offer potentially greater insight into the conditions under which such external information operates. However, the traditional approach to the study of how consumer knowledge and motivation affect processing of advertising and other persuasive information has relied on simple, high–low median splits, or the experimental manipulation of such factors. Such an approach may potentially obscure the levels at which specific outcomes may or may not be occurring, especially at the highest or lowest levels of such factors.
Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the role of the highest levels of caloric knowledge, obesity consequences knowledge, and motivation to search for nutrition information in the processing of relative nutrient content claims in advertisements, such as “half the calories” or “half the fat,” for products relatively high in total calorie levels. Specifically, the authors predict that there will be a negative relationship between caloric knowledge, obesity consequences knowledge, and motivation and intent to buy an advertised chocolate snack bar brand. They further predict that at the highest levels of caloric knowledge, obesity consequences, knowledge and motivation, the effect on intent to buy the brand will be a downward-sloping curve, in contrast to people with low or more moderate knowledge or motivation.
After successful pretests used to develop both (1) ad claims and ad disclosures and (2) the objective caloric knowledge and obesity consequences knowledge measures, 480 adult consumers were recruited and interviewed in malls in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles for the main study. The sample was split evenly by gender, and four age quotas were used to match U.S. Bureau of the Census projections for participants 18 years of age and older. The study procedures followed generally accepted guidelines for advertising copy testing, including the use of a control ad group. Two of the independent variables for the study were experimentally manipulated (i.e., ad claim and disclosure), and three were measured (i.e., obesity consequences knowledge, caloric knowledge, and motivation to search for nutrition information). In the study, respondents were randomly assigned to one of six ad conditions in a 3 (ad claim: no-claim control, half the fat, half the calories) ´ 2 (disclosure: none, present) between-subjects design. All advertisements were presented in color, were professionally designed, included the package, had a similar copy length, and began with the words “We packed so much delectable chocolate inside ...”, in line with actual brand advertisements. The no-claim control (i.e., given to the ad control group) went on to discuss chocolate but did not present a nutrition claim. The “half-the-fat” claim stated that the snack-bar brand had “half the fat of the leading candy bar,” while the “half-the-calories” claim mentioned that the brand had “half the calories of the leading candy bar.” The disclosure condition consisted of either the no-disclosure control or the presence of the following disclosure at the bottom of the advertisement: “Contains 400 calories per serving, an amount determined by the Food and Drug Administration to be high.” In addition, cognitive responses were collected in the main study to help determine whether respondents engaged in “health halo” processing.
The results show that beyond the effects of the ad claims and disclosures, control variables (e.g., demographics, body mass index), and the linear (main) effects of the knowledge and motivation measures, there were significant curvilinear (quadratic) effects for caloric knowledge, obesity consequences knowledge, and motivation to search for nutrition information on intent to buy the advertised high-calorie snack bar. This implies a strengthening of the negative relationship for intent for consumers who are at the highest levels of caloric knowledge, obesity consequences knowledge, and motivation (i.e., the “nutrition elite”). In addition, cognitive response data indicate that exposure to the relative nutrition ad claims can lead to potential health halos.
In terms of characteristics internal to the consumer, the results imply the significant roles of the highest levels of two types of knowledge (i.e., caloric and obesity consequences) and self-reported motivation to search for nutrition information separate from the impact of claims and disclosures, control variables, and the linear (main) effects of knowledge and motivation. As a result of such effects, attempting to reach higher levels of these constructs may be crucial for public health officials, given concerns about low knowledge and insufficient motivation to regulate behavioral eating patterns. The findings also support contentions that different types of knowledge may be needed to produce the greatest potential effect in fighting obesity and, if at all possible, that efforts should be made to try to design educational programs to increase consumer knowledge of nutrition and the consequences of obesity. Yet, it might be argued that achieving such exceedingly high levels of nutrition knowledge and motivation is unrealistic for the general public in light of other policy alternatives, such as market-based solutions (e.g., reducing serving sizes, standardized front-of-package icons).
Biography
J. Craig Andrews is Professor of Marketing and Charles H. Kellstadt Chair in Marketing at Marquette University. His research interests focus primarily on advertising and public health issues. He serves on the Food and Drub Administration’s Risk Communication Advisory Board and has been on the Behavior Change Expert Panel for the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. He is former editor of Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, has been a consumer research specialist in the Division of Advertising Practices with the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C., and was chair of the Marketing & Society Special Interest Group of the American Marketing Association. Professor Andrews currently serves on four editorial boards. His work has appeared in Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Journal of Advertising, Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Retailing, and American Journal of Public Health, among others.
Richard G. Netemeyer is Senior Associate Dean and Ralph A. Beeton Professor of Free Commerce in the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia. Before joining the faculty at the McIntire School of Commerce, he was a member of the Marketing Department faculty in the E.J. Ourso School of Business at Louisiana State University from 1986 to 2001. His research interests include a variety of marketing and public policy topics, and his research has been published in Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, among others. He is also a member of the editorial review boards of Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Research, and Journal of Public Policy & Marketing.
Scot Burton is a professor and Wal-Mart Chair in Marketing in the Department of Marketing and Logistics, Sam M. Walton College of Business, at the University of Arkansas–Fayetteville. His research interests include public policy and consumer welfare concerns, promotion and pricing issues, and survey research measurement issues. In addition to Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, his research has been published in more than 25 different journals in marketing, psychology, and health, including Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Applied Psychology, American Journal of Public Health, Journal of Retailing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Public Opinion Quarterly, Journal of Management, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, among other journals.
Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Volume 28, Number 1, Spring 2009
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