IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/joamsc/v50y2022i1d10.1007_s11747-021-00796-w.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Going healthy: how product characteristics influence the sales impact of front-of-pack health symbols

Author

Listed:
  • Stijn Maesen

    (Imperial College London Business School)

  • Lien Lamey

    (KU Leuven)

  • Anne ter Braak

    (Maastricht University)

  • Léon Jansen

    (Schuttelaar & Partners and Scientific Secretary of the Dutch Choices Foundation)

Abstract

Manufacturers increasingly adopt health symbols, which translate overall product healthiness into a single symbol, to communicate about the overall healthiness of their grocery products. This study examines how the performance implications of adding a front-of-pack health symbol to a product vary across products. We study the sales impact of a government-supported health symbol program in 29 packaged categories, using over four years of scanner data. The results indicate that health symbols are most impactful when they positively disconfirm pre-existing beliefs that a product is not among the healthiest products within the category. More specifically, we find that health symbols are more effective for (i) products with a front-of-pack taste claim, (ii) lower priced products, and (iii) private label products. Furthermore, these results are more pronounced in healthier categories than in unhealthier categories. Our findings imply that health symbols can help overcome lay beliefs among consumers regarding a product’s overall healthiness. As such, adding a health symbol provides easy-to-process information about product healthiness for the consumer and can increase product sales for the manufacturer.

Suggested Citation

  • Stijn Maesen & Lien Lamey & Anne ter Braak & Léon Jansen, 2022. "Going healthy: how product characteristics influence the sales impact of front-of-pack health symbols," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 108-130, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:joamsc:v:50:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s11747-021-00796-w
    DOI: 10.1007/s11747-021-00796-w
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11747-021-00796-w
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11747-021-00796-w?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oliver J. Rutz & George F. Watson, 2019. "Endogeneity and marketing strategy research: an overview," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 479-498, May.
    2. Pierre Dubois & Paulo Albuquerque & Olivier Allais & Céline Bonnet & Patrice Bertail & Pierre Combris & Saadi Lahlou & Natalie Rigal & Bernard Ruffieux & Pierre Chandon, 2021. "Effects of front-of-pack labels on the nutritional quality of supermarket food purchases: evidence from a large-scale randomized controlled trial," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 119-138, January.
    3. Gijsenberg, Maarten J., 2014. "Going for gold: Investigating the (non)sense of increased advertising around major sports events," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 2-15.
    4. Wansink, Brian, 2017. "Healthy Profits: An Interdisciplinary Retail Framework that Increases the Sales of Healthy Foods," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 65-78.
    5. Kiesel, Kristin & Villas-Boas, Sofia B., 2013. "Can information costs affect consumer choice? Nutritional labels in a supermarket experiment," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 153-163.
    6. Trivedi, Minakshi & Sridhar, Karthik & Kumar, Ashish, 2016. "Impact of Healthy Alternatives on Consumer Choice: A Balancing Act," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 65-82.
    7. Guitart, Ivan A. & Gonzalez, Jorge & Stremersch, Stefan, 2018. "Advertising non-premium products as if they were premium: The impact of advertising up on advertising elasticity and brand equity," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 471-489.
    8. Sungho Park & Sachin Gupta, 2012. "Handling Endogenous Regressors by Joint Estimation Using Copulas," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(4), pages 567-586, July.
    9. Berning Joshua P & Chouinard Hayley H & McCluskey Jill J, 2008. "Consumer Preferences for Detailed versus Summary Formats of Nutrition Information on Grocery Store Shelf Labels," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-22, August.
    10. Klaus Wertenbroch, 1998. "Consumption Self-Control by Rationing Purchase Quantities of Virtue and Vice," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(4), pages 317-337.
    11. MacKenzie, Scott B, 1986. "The Role of Attention in Mediating the Effect of Advertising on Attribute Importance," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 13(2), pages 174-195, September.
    12. Lim, Leon Gim & Tuli, Kapil R. & Dekimpe, Marnik G., 2018. "Investors' evaluations of price-increase preannouncements," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 359-377.
    13. Pierre Dubois & Paulo Albuquerque & Olivier Allais & Céline Bonnet & Patrice Bertail & Pierre Combris & Saadi Lahlou & Natalie Rigal & Bernard Ruffieux & Pierre Chandon, 2021. "Effects of front-of-pack labels on the nutritional quality of supermarket food purchases: evidence from a large-scale randomized controlled trial," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 119-138, January.
    14. Broniarczyk, Susan M & Alba, Joseph W, 1994. "The Role of Consumers' Intuitions in Inference Making," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 21(3), pages 393-407, December.
    15. Elizabeth A. Howlett & Scot Burton & Kenneth Bates & Kyle Huggins, 2009. "Coming to a Restaurant Near You? Potential Consumer Responses to Nutrition Information Disclosure on Menus," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 36(3), pages 494-503.
    16. Ivan Guitart & Jorge Gonzalez & Stefan Stremersch, 2018. "Advertising non-premium products as if they were premium : The impact of advertising up on advertising elasticity and brand equity," Post-Print hal-02312175, HAL.
    17. Cleeren, Kathleen & Geyskens, Kelly & Verhoef, Peter C. & Pennings, Joost M.E., 2016. "Regular or low-fat? An investigation of the long-run impact of the first low-fat purchase on subsequent purchase volumes and calories," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 896-906.
    18. Newman, Christopher L. & Howlett, Elizabeth & Burton, Scot, 2014. "Shopper Response to Front-of-Package Nutrition Labeling Programs: Potential Consumer and Retail Store Benefits," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 13-26.
    19. Iina Ikonen & Francesca Sotgiu & Aylin Aydinli & Peeter W. J. Verlegh, 2020. "Consumer effects of front-of-package nutrition labeling: an interdisciplinary meta-analysis," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 360-383, May.
    20. Verhoef, Peter C. & van Doorn, Jenny, 2016. "Segmenting Consumers According to Their Purchase of Products with Organic, Fair-Trade, and Health Labels," Journal of Marketing Behavior, now publishers, vol. 2(1), pages 19-37, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pierre Chandon & Romain Cadario, 2023. "Healthy in the wrong way: Mismatching of marketers’ food claim use and consumers’ preferences in the United States but not France," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 51(1), pages 153-173, January.
    2. Radovan Savov & Filip Tkac & Juraj Cheben & Jana Kozakova & Jakub Bercík, 2022. "Impact of Different FOPL Systems (Nutri-Score vs. Nutrinform) On Consumer Behaviour: Case Study of the Slovak Republic," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 24(61), pages 797-797, August.
    3. Abhishek Borah & Francesca Bonetti & Angelito Calma & José Martí-Parreño, 2023. "The Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science at 50: A historical analysis," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 51(1), pages 222-243, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrews, J. Craig & Netemeyer, Richard & Burton, Scot & Kees, Jeremy, 2021. "What consumers actually know: The role of objective nutrition knowledge in processing stop sign and traffic light front-of-pack nutrition labels," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 140-155.
    2. Pierre Chandon & Romain Cadario, 2023. "Healthy in the wrong way: Mismatching of marketers’ food claim use and consumers’ preferences in the United States but not France," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 51(1), pages 153-173, January.
    3. Aydinli, Aylin & Lamey, Lien & Millet, Kobe & ter Braak, Anne & Vuegen, Maya, 2021. "How Do Customers Alter Their Basket Composition When They Perceive the Retail Store to Be Crowded? An Empirical Study," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 207-216.
    4. Wansink, Brian, 2017. "Healthy Profits: An Interdisciplinary Retail Framework that Increases the Sales of Healthy Foods," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 65-78.
    5. Ivan A. Guitart & Guillaume Hervet & Sarah Gelper, 2020. "Competitive advertising strategies for programmatic television," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(4), pages 753-775, July.
    6. Stephanie von Hinke, 2022. "Education, Dietary Intakes and Exercise," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(1), pages 214-240, February.
    7. Beth L. Fossen & Alexander Bleier, 2021. "Online program engagement and audience size during television ads," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 49(4), pages 743-761, July.
    8. Radovan Savov & Filip Tkac & Juraj Cheben & Jana Kozakova & Jakub Bercík, 2022. "Impact of Different FOPL Systems (Nutri-Score vs. Nutrinform) On Consumer Behaviour: Case Study of the Slovak Republic," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 24(61), pages 797-797, August.
    9. Becker, Maren & Gijsenberg, Maarten J., 2023. "Consistency and commonality in advertising content: Helping or Hurting?," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 128-145.
    10. Robertson, Deirdre A. & Andersson, Ylva & Lunn, Peter D., 2023. "How consumer and provider responses to nutritional labelling interact: An online shopping experiment with implications for policy," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    11. Pierre Dubois & Paulo Albuquerque & Olivier Allais & Céline Bonnet & Patrice Bertail & Pierre Combris & Saadi Lahlou & Natalie Rigal & Bernard Ruffieux & Pierre Chandon, 2021. "Effects of front-of-pack labels on the nutritional quality of supermarket food purchases: evidence from a large-scale randomized controlled trial," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 119-138, January.
    12. Nagpal, Anish & Lei, Jing & Khare, Adwait, 2015. "To Choose or to Reject: The Effect of Decision Frame on Food Customization Decisions," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 91(3), pages 422-435.
    13. Jingwen Liu & Peng Zou & Yu Ma, 2022. "The Effect of Air Pollution on Food Preferences," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 410-423, March.
    14. Inge Geyskens & Barbara Deleersnyder & Marnik G. Dekimpe & Didi Lin, 2024. "Do consumers benefit from national-brand listings by hard discounters?," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 97-118, January.
    15. Thomas Chambon & Ulysse Soulat & Jeanne Lallement & Jean-Loup Guillaume, 2023. "The effect of visual information complexity on urban mobility intention and behavior," Post-Print hal-04089291, HAL.
    16. van Ewijk, Bernadette J. & Stubbe, Astrid & Gijsbrechts, Els & Dekimpe, Marnik G., 2021. "Online display advertising for CPG brands: (When) does it work?," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 271-289.
    17. Manzi-Puertas, Mario A. & Agirre-Aramburu, Izaskun & López-Pérez, Sain, 2024. "Navigating the student entrepreneurial journey: Dynamics and interplay of resourceful and innovative behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    18. Zhu, Chen & Lopez, Rigoberto A. & Liu, Xiaoou, 2019. "Consumer responses to front-of-package labeling in the presence of information spillovers," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 1-1.
    19. Tarunija Chandra & Vibhuti Tripathi, 2023. "Antecedents and Mediators for Building and Integrated Research Framework towards Successful Brand Revitalisation," Central European Business Review, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2023(1), pages 133-163.
    20. Wang, Xia & Ding, Ying, 2022. "The impact of monetary rewards on product sales in referral programs: The role of product image aesthetics," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 828-842.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:joamsc:v:50:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s11747-021-00796-w. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.