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Executive Summary
This research examines how low-literate consumers use nutritional labels on packages and investigates ways such usage can be facilitated. Extant research on nutritional labeling suggests that summary nutrition information (e.g., nutritional averages ranges) is beneficial for evaluation of product healthfulness. However, research on low-literate consumers indicates that these benefits may not accrue to the low-literate segment because of tendencies to think concretely and pictographically. Building off of these findings, the authors hypothesize that the use of graphic representations of summary information would be beneficial to low-literate consumers without any detriment to literate consumers. To test this prediction, the authors design an experiment to assess the effects of graphic versus nongraphic formats on the usage of nutrition information by consumers with different levels of literacy.

The findings suggest improved use of nutritional information for the new, graphic formats. Importantly, summary information (e.g., average), which has been shown to benefit literate consumers, was not useful for low-literate consumers. A wide range of literacy levels (from 0 to 12) appears to benefit from presentations that are in a graphic form. However, the findings point to several complexities, such as differences in how the two graphic formats investigated are processed and used. The findings reinforce low-literate consumers’ difficulty with abstractions and predilections toward concrete and pictographic thinking.

Biography
Madhu Viswanathan has been on the faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, since 1990. He focuses on two programs of research: (1) measurement and research methodology and (2) literacy, poverty, and subsistence marketplace behaviors. His work in measurement and research methodology includes a book titled Measurement Error and Research Design (Sage Publications, 2005). His research on literacy, poverty, and marketplace behaviors includes a book published by Springer in an education series in alliance with UNESCO titled Enabling Consumer and Entrepreneurial Literacy in Subsistence Marketplaces (2008). He teaches courses on research methods and sustainable product and market development for subsistence. His research is applied through the Marketplace Literacy Project (www.marketplaceliteracy.org), a nonprofit organization that he founded and directs.

Manoj Hastak has published articles in leading marketing journals, including Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Journal of Advertising, Journal of Business Research, and Psychology & Marketing. He is a past recipient of the Thomas C. Kinnear award for the best article published in Journal of Public Policy & Marketing during a three-year period. His research focuses on the implications of consumer information-processing theory and methodology for better understanding public policy issues and problems, particularly in the areas of health/nutrition claims and environmental claims in advertising and product labeling. He previously served on the faculty at the University of Illinois and as an in-house expert in consumer research (faculty-in-residence) at the Federal Trade Commission.

Roland Gau is a doctoral candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.  His theoretical interests are in consumer decision making (in particular, thinking and learning styles) and consumer expertise. His work is often set in subsistence contexts, both in the United States and abroad.

Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Volume 28, Number 2, Fall 2009
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