Influencing Consumer Choice for Healthy Foods at the Point of Purchase: The role of marketing communication and food pricing strategies

Obesity is a world-wide issue causing not only health problems for individuals but also having severe consequences to economies on a broader scale. Therefore, much attention has been given to promoting healthier consumption patterns among consumers. Marketers can do their part in the battle against obesity for example by promoting healthier products through marketing communications and pricing strategies at the point of purchase. This dissertation set out to better understand the effectiveness of such tactics in helping consumers make healthier decisions. Essay 1 compares the effects of different types of front-of-package nutrition labelling on a number of consumer outcomes through a meta-analysis. Essay 2 focuses on a specific type of nutrition label, namely nutrition claims, and compares claims focusing on the addition of positive nutrients and the reduction of negative nutrients. Essay 3 investigates potential unintended consequences of price discounts on healthy food products. Overall, the findings suggest that the effectiveness of these tactics may be limited due to unintended consequences on product perceptions. Marketers and policy makers need to acknowledge that consumers are not basing their food choices on considerations of health and price alone. More focus should be placed on increasing consumers’ overall health motivation.