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

Stijn Maesen (), Lien Lamey (), Anne ter Braak () and Léon Jansen
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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

Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 2022, vol. 50, issue 1, No 9, 108-130

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: Health symbol; Front-of-package nutritional information; Food purchases; Lay beliefs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11747-021-00796-w

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