Abstract
A variety of prevention measures are being adopted to counter obesity. One of them is to include health sanitary messages on advertisements for food products. We tested the efficacy of this type of measure in an experimental study with 131 participants who were randomly exposed to an advertisement for a hedonic product containing or not a sanitary message. Implicit memory representations (priming protocol), explicit attitudes (questionnaire) and a behavioral measure of food choice (healthy versus unhealthy snack) were collected. Results showed that participants associated negative concepts more easily to the product when the advertisement was presented without the sanitary message, while there were no differences in the explicit attitudes. Moreover, the choice of a healthy snack doubled in the absence of sanitary message. Contrary to its objectives, the obesity prevention sanitary message fills in consumers’ need for justification leading to a greater acceptability of the advertised product and increased choice of an unhealthy snack.
References
Basch, C. E., Zybert, P., & Shea, S. (1994). 5-A-DAY: Dietary behavior and the fruit and vegetable intake of Latino children. American Journal of Public Health, 84, 814–818.
Berger, J., & Fitzsimons, G. (2008). Dogs on the street, pumas on your feet: How cues in the environment influence product evaluation and choice. Journal of Marketing Research, 45, 1–14.
Chandon, P., & Wansink, B. (2007). Is obesity caused by calorie underestimation? A psychophysical model of meal size estimation. Journal of Marketing Research, 44(1), 84–99.
Chitturi, R., Raghunathan, R., & Mahajan, V. (2007). Form versus function: how the intensities of specific emotions evoked in functional versus hedonic trade-offs mediate product preferences. Journal of Marketing Research, 44(4), 702–714.
Cunningham, W. A., & Zelazo, P. D. (2007). Attitudes and evaluations: A social cognitive perspective. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 97–104.
Dhar, T., & Baylis, K. (2011). Fast-food consumption and the ban on advertising targeting children: The Quebec experience. Journal of Marketing Research, 48(5), 799–813.
Halford, J. C. G., Gillespie, J., Brown, V., Pontin, E. E., & Dovey, T. M. (2004). Effect of television advertisements for foods on food consumption in children. Appetite, 42(2), 221–225.
Halford, J. C. G., Boyland, E. J., Hughes, G., Oliveira, L. P., & Dovey, T. M. (2007). Beyond-brand effect of television (TV) food advertisements/commercials on caloric intake and food choice of 5–7-year-old children. Appetite, 49(1), 263–267.
Hammond, D., Fong, G. T., McDonald, P. W., Brown, K. S., & Cameron, R. (2004). Graphic Canadian cigarette warning labels and adverse outcomes: evidence from Canadian smokers. American Journal of Public Health, 94, 1442–1445.
Harris, J. L., Bargh, J. A., & Brownell, K. D. (2009). Priming effects of television food advertising on eating behavior. Health Psychology, 28(4), 404–413.
Hawkes, C. (2007). Regulating food marketing to young people worldwide: Trends and policy drivers. American Journal of Public Health, 97, 1962–1973.
Hoch, S. J., & Loewenstein, G. F. (1997). Time-inconsistent preferences and consumer self-control. Journal of Consumer Research, 17(4), 492–507.
Homer, P. M. (1990). The mediating role of attitude toward the ad: Some additional evidence. Journal of Marketing Research, 27(1), 78–86.
INPES (2007) Post-test des messages sanitaires apposés sur les publicités alimentaires auprès des 8 ans et plus, Ministère de la santé, de la jeunesse et des sports et l'Institut National de Prévention et d'Education pour la Santé.
Karpinski, A., & Hilton, J. L. (2001). Attitudes and the implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 774–778.
Kees, J., Burton, S., Andrews, J. C., & Kozup, J. (2006). Test of graphic visuals and cigarette package warning combinations: Implications for the framework convention of tobacco control. JPP & M, 25(2), 212–223.
Keller, P. A., & Lehmann, D. R. (2008). Designing effective health communications: A meta-analysis. JPP & M, 27(2), 117–130.
Khan, U., & Dhar, R. (2006). Licensing effects in consumer choice. Journal of Marketing Research, 43(2), 259–266.
Kivetz, R., & Simonson, I. (2002). Earning the right to indulge: Effort as a determinant of customer preferences toward frequency program rewards. Journal of Marketing Research, 39(2), 155–170.
Lee, K., & Shavitt, S. (2009). Can McDonald’s food ever be considered healthful? metacognitive experiences affect the perceived understanding of a brand. Journal of Marketing Research, 46, 222–233.
Lobstein, T., & Dibb, S. (2005). Evidence of a possible link between obesogenic food advertising and child overweight. Obesity Reviews, 6(3), 203–208.
Meyer, D. E., & Schvaneveldt, R. W. (1971). Facilitation in recognizing pairs of words: Evidence of a dependence between retrieval operations. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 90(2), 227–234.
Neal, D. T., Wood, W., & Quinn, J. M. (2006). Habits: A repeat performance. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15(4), 198–202.
Okada, E. M. (2005). Justification effects on consumer choice of hedonic and utilitarian goods. Journal of Marketing Research, 42(1), 43–53.
Perugini, M. (2005). Predictive models of implicit and explicit attitudes. British Journal of Social Psychology, 44, 29–45.
Rabiau, M., Knäuper, B., & Miquelon, P. (2006). The eternal quest for optimal balance between maximizing pleasure and minimizing harm: The compensatory health beliefs model. British Journal of Health Psychology, 11, 139–153.
Sabanne, L. I., Lowrey, T. M., & Chebat, J. C. (2009). The effectiveness of cigarette warning label threats on nonsmoking adolescents. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 43(2), 332–345.
Strahilevitz, M., & Myers, J. G. (1998). Donations to charity as purchase incentives: How well they work may depend on what you are trying to sell. Journal of Consumer Research, 24, 434–446.
Verplanken, B., & Wood, W. (2006). Breaking and creating habits: Consequences for public policy interventions. JPP & M, 25, 90–103.
Voss, K. E., Spangenberg, E. R., & Grohmann, B. (2003). Measuring the hedonic and utilitarian dimensions of consumer attitude. Journal of Marketing Research, 40(3), 310–320.
Wilson, T. D. (2011). Redirect: The surprising new science of psychological change. London (UK): Allen Lane.
Zimmerman, F. J., & Bell, J. F. (2010). Associations of television content type and obesity in children. American Journal of Public Health, 100, 334–340.
Acknowledgments
We thank Jennifer S. Coelho and Frédéric Basso for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Werle, C.O.C., Cuny, C. The boomerang effect of mandatory sanitary messages to prevent obesity. Mark Lett 23, 883–891 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-012-9195-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-012-9195-0