Food, marketing, neuroscience and health:

how to increase the consumption of healthy food through marketing strategies

Master’s Thesis Exposé

Submitted by:

Marzia Palmas

EMBS 10

Kassel, Germany

October 30st, 2016

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I. ABSTRACT

Title: Food, marketing, neuroscience and health: how to increase the consumption of healthy food

through marketing strategies.

Abstract

Food powers our lives. All bodily processes are enabled by it. Strength, agility, endurance, but also

emotional health, stability, memory, depression, and physical illnesses are influenced by it. This is

how important it is to eat healthy, and marketing is a powerful weapon to convince people to

choose healthier solutions. Not to mention the amount of time spent every day around food:

thinking about it, purchasing it, cooking and eating it. With the industrialization, the lack of time,

the change of habits, people opt more and more for high calories solutions: attracted by the sweet

taste, big formats and low prices.

This thesis aims at assessing whether marketing strategies can have an effect on the choice of

consumers at the point of purchase. To do so a literary review on the different in-store marketing

strategies applicable is developed, a survey is done as an exploratory phase and an experiment on

different labels is conducted. The experiment will prove whether people are responding toward

certain types of manipulation in a way the theory expects them to react. The survey will help

formulating the hypothesis of the experiment and choose the label to apply on the experimented

products.

The first hypothesis is if it is possible to manipulate humans by very short exposures to pictures. In

the experiment then respondents will be exposed to the label chosen through the survey on pasta

packages and to different positioning on the shelves. Pasta has been chosen not only for its big

variety in Italian supermarkets, and for its complete representation of the options (from the

healthiest to the less healthy), but also because there aren’t very many front-of-package claims yet.

The conclusion will clarify the relationship between marketing and food.

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II. TABLE OF CONTENT

I. ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………….…. II

II. TABLE OF CONTENT …………………………………………………... III

III. LIST OF FIGURES ..……………………………………………………… IV

IV. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ……………………………………………. V

1. INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………… 5

1.1 PROBLEM STATEMENT ……………………………………….....… 7

1.2 PURPOSE …………………………………………………………….. 4

1.3 STRUCTURE ………………………………………………………… 4

2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ………………………………………… 5

2.1 LABELS ………………………………………………………………. 6

2.2 PACKAGING …………………………………………………………. 14

2.3 SHELVES ARRANGEMENTS ………………………………………. 16

3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESIS ………………………… 17

4. METHODOLOGY ……………………………………...…………………. 18

5. WORK PLAN ……………………………………………………………… 19

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY …………………………………………………………. 20

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III. LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Obesity rates (OECS analysis of health survey data, 2014) ……………………….7

Figure 2: Framework of the drivers that lead to changing eating habits, developed by the

McKinsey Global Insitute (2014) ……………………………………………………………8

Figure 3: Mean frequencies of the answers at the question “When buying food and drink

products, how often do you look for the following information on the packaging?” (scale:

1=never to 7=always; 4,408 respondents) ………………………………………….……….11

Figure 4: Traffic light label used in Borgmeier and Westenhoefer (2009) experiment …….14

Figure 5: Emoticons labels as used by Vasiljevic et al. (2015) for their behavioural

experiment……………………………………………………………………………………15

Figure 6: Stars ranking label as it has been conceived by the IOM (Goetz, 2011)…………..16

Figure 7: Star ratings as created by the GSP (2006) …………………………………………16

Figure 8: Silhouette labels with percentage of body fat specified, as they have been developed

from the Department of Neuromarketing of the University of Pavia, Italy (Lugli, 2015)……17

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IV. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

BMI: Body Mass Index

CDC: Center for Disease Control and Prevention

CPG: Consumer Packaged Goods

EUFIC: European Food Information Council

FCQ: Food Choice Questionnaire

FOP Labels: Front-of-package Labels

GDA: Guideline Daily Amounts

GSP: Guiding Stars Program

ICT: Identity Control Theory

IOM: Institute Of Medicine

NFP: Nutrition Facts Panel

NFS: Nutritional Facts Seekers

POPAI: Point Of Purchase Advertising International

TL: Taste Lovers

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1. INTRODUCTION

Obesity is one of the three major social costs generated from the human beings (after smoking

and armed violence, war and terrorism). According to the World Health Organization in 2014,

people who suffer from it have more than doubled compared to 1980, reaching 1/3rd of the world

population (overweight or obese). Moreover, related to it there are various costs: the direct ones

connected to the pathologies, and the indirect ones that derive from the low productivity and

absenteeism of overweight people (Eisenberg & Burgess, 2015). The importance of this

phenomenon has led to various studies on how nutritional marketing can help. The focus of this

paper is going to be on the different modalities with which it is possible to help people purchase and

consume adequate food to maintain their well-being and health.

People overconsume unhealthy food because: either they are unaware of the negative

consequences of doing so; or they are not willing enough to resist such food; or they intuitively

believe unhealthier food tastes better (Raghunathan, Naylor, & Hoyer, 2006). A belief, in this case,

can come from internal sources, such as personal experience or self-observation (Ross & Nisbett,

2011); but it can also come from external sources such as mass media or personal communication,

that reinforce the intuition (Morris, Menon, & Ames, 2001). This is the reason why: the way food is

marketed is one of the most relevant reasons for the global obesity epidemic (Kessler, 2010; Nestle

& Nesheim, 2012; Swinburn et al., 2011).

Many researches have been done on the part of marketing of the food that is advertising, and

many have shown their interests in TV commercials. But nowadays these have left much more

space to the marketing done through Internet, the social networks and the point of purchase

(Chandon, Hutchinson, Bradlow, & Young, 2009; Winer, 2009). The latter is the one I am going to

study in deep in this paper.

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1.1 PROBLEM STATEMENT

A lot of marketing attempts try to manipulate people to behave differently from the way they

do, but consumers are very resistant (Ram & Sheth, 1989), and there is still a problem related to

unhealthy eating. Indeed, the worldwide pattern shows people suffering more and more of obesity,

although not all societies are affected by it in the same way (Rocchetti, Ürkemz & Wagner, 2016),

as it can be seen in Figure 1.

Figure 9: Obesity rates (OECS analysis of health survey data, 2014)

1.2 PURPOSE

This paper will not try to find the reasons that originate obesity, but will only deal with the

control measures qualified by McKinsey & Company as Information and Influence (2014). The

focus will be, indeed, on the different strategies that can be adopted in–store to make people

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purchase and consume adequate food to maintain wellness and health. These drivers can be seen in

Figure 2.

Figure 10: Framework of the drivers that lead to changing eating habits, developed by the McKinsey Global Insitute (2014)

In line with the problem statement, this study attempts to answer the following questions:

Is there a relationship between marketing and food?

Why do people buy less healthy food?

Why are attempts of convincing people to go for healthier solutions failing?

Which marketing strategies have already been used?

Can in-store marketing strategies manipulate people’s choices?

1.3 STRUCTURE

A theoretical framework outlines the factors that drive consumers to purchase healthy and not

healthy types of food. To follow, a study explains the various marketing strategies already existing

(labels, packaging and shelves arrangements). Moreover, a survey has been done to answer the

research questions outlined below and prove the hypothesis, and an experiment has been carried out

to see if and how can people be manipulated through the marketing strategies delineated.

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2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The first theory on which this paper is build, is Bettman, Luce and Payne’s “Constructive

Consumer Choice Theory” (1998). According to this theory, while consumers don’t usually have

well-defined existing preferences, these can be constructed applying some strategies:

1) Accuracy- effort framework. The strategies employed by a decision maker are the result of a

compromise between the desire of making being as accurate as possible, and the desire to

minimize the effort (cognitive, physical, etc.): therefore, any different decision has different

strategies (Payne, 1982).

2) Perceptual framework. Since our system is more keen to notice changes rather than absolute

magnitudes of stimuli, a choice will be seen as a gain or a loss relative to some reference

point (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). And because there can be different perspectives on

perception, a small change in framing a problem can already lead to a different choice

(Tversky & Kahneman, 1988).

Bettman, Luce and Payne combine these two approaches, claiming they can complement each other

since both of them provide different insights in the decision process. The propositions of their

integrated conceptual framework are:

- When making a choice, consumers try to accomplish goals such as: maximize the accuracy

of the decision, minimize the cognitive effort, minimize the negative emotions that could

arise from the experience and maximize the facility with which a choice can be justified.

- Importance and irreversibility of the decision, involvement and possibility of feedbacks are

factors that will make one or another goal weight more.

- Different factors can lead to a voluntary or involuntary attention, and this leads to a different

perceptual interpretation.

- Previous experiences of the individuals will make them apply differently the decision

problems. And will make them perceive relative advantages or disadvantages that come with

a choice.

Finally, the strategy selected by the consumer, will be the one that: meets their goal, in that

particular situation, bringing advantages or disadvantages related to those goals.

The second background theory is Burke’s “Identity Control Theory” (2007). ICT focuses on

the relation between a person’s identity and its behavior within its social structure: people are

deeply tied to the latter through their identities. ICT’s central focus is the concept of meaning:

indeed, identity can be defined as the set of meanings of the various social roles that a person has as

a member of a social group. The sum of these meanings defines who a person is, the identity

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standard: what does it mean to be a housekeeper, what does it mean to be a wife, etc. (Osgood, Suci

& Tannenbaum, 1957). These will create a series of stimuli that will lead to a certain set of

responses (behaviors).

According to Burke, the process of controlling comes into play when a person sees a discrepancy

between the perceived meanings and the meanings in the identity standard. In this situation, the

person will try to bring them into congruency by changing its behavior. We could say that in this

process people try to confirm their identities, making converge, in any situation, the perceived

meanings with the identity standard ones. At the same time, though, with time the identity standard

changes converging more and more with the situational meanings.

2.1 LABELS

The fact that shopping environments are so comparative provides marketers with many

opportunities to try to influence customers (Bettman, Luce & Payne, 1988). We know 82% of mass

merchant customer’s purchase decisions, and 76% of grocery purchase decisions are made inside

the store (POPAI, 2014). People underestimate how many food-related decisions they take every

day and how many of them are led by the environment. On average one person makes 200-300

food-related decisions per day (Wansink & Sobal, 2007). So how can they process all of them?

2.1.1 The brand

According to Chrysochou (2010) for their food choices, the first thing people look at is the

brand. Therefore, having a communication of the brand that goes toward the value of health is very

important. This is not what I am going to talk about in the thesis, but it is fundamental to know that

the fact that people are more and more interested in healthy food, leaves a big potential for

companies to launch healthy brands. Moreover, in this research we will verify if the brand is really

the first thing respondents look at and, in the experiment, we will try to neutralize this variable.

Other variables we will try to neutralize are the price, the expiring date and the quantity in the

package. Indeed, in Figure 3 we can see which are the information people look at the most, when

purchasing food, according to a survey conducted in 2012 from the European Food Information

Council (EUFIC).

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Figure 11: Mean frequencies of the answers at the question “When buying food and drink products, how often do you look for

the following information on the packaging?” (scale: 1=never to 7=always; 4,408 respondents)

2.1.2 Processing fluency

When information on the product are given, the researcher Schwarz (2004) has

demonstrated that consumers take into consideration not only the piece of information, but also its

facility to be found, understood and used. A few years later Shah and Oppenheimer (2007)

confirmed this hypothesis stating that cues that are easier to understand and process are the ones

people take more into consideration when making a decision. This “processing fluency”, which is

how Schwarz calls the ease or difficultness with which a person processes an information, can arise

both from the shape of the label, and from its meaning. In this research, we are going to make the

respondents choose which label they think would condition more their purchase, changing mainly

the shape for the different design created.

2.1.3 The impact of FOP labels

A part from a few exceptions, such as the information about the package size and the

nutritional information label that the producers are legally obliged to put in the back of the package,

the other information put in the front of the package are managed by marketers (Grunert, Bolton, &

Raats, 2011; Kiesel & Villas-Boas, 2013). Many food manufacturers and retailers now put front-of-

package (FOP) labels that require less effort and time to process than the nutritional facts panel

(NFP). The impact of a FOP nutrition label varies between comparative and non-comparative

consumers’ processing contexts, and depends on whether it is an objective or evaluative cue

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(Newman, Howlett, & Burton, 2015). For example, some of the health cues are the “Great for You”

Walmart’s label and the “Healthy Stars” FOP icons that the Institute of Medicine proposed.

First of all, impacts are different in comparative and non-comparative environments because these

have a big influence on attitudes, behaviors and intentions (Naylor, Lamberton & West, 2012). In

comparative environments, indeed, customers screen the different options available, and evaluate a

product based on the other brands they see. Non-comparative environments are, in this sense, less

cognitively challenging, because consumers evaluate a product without confronting it to others

(Hsee & Leclere, 1998; Kardes, Sanbonmatsu, Cronley, & Houghton, 2002).

Secondly, the impact is different whether the cues are objective or evaluative. In fact, while the

former gives consumers an information that is impartial, measurable and objective; the latter gives

them an interpretative information (Prabhaker & Sauer, 1994). Objective cues are, indeed, all the

quantitative expressions of nutrients such as calories, fats, carbohydrates, etc. contained in the

product. These are taken from the NFP, and the most significant ones for the marketing strategy

pursue by the brand, are the ones used in the FOP nutrition label. The evaluative cues, on the other

side, provide consumers with an interpretation of an attribute or another specificity of the product

(for example its low fat contents). The easier and quicker to read the FOP labels are, the more the

load of cue interpretation is decreased, and this is important especially in busy and full of stimuli

environments such as supermarkets, where the products are many (Feunekes, Gortemaker, Willems,

Lion & Van Den Kommer, 2008).

But the impact also differs on the health consciousness of people: taste lovers (TL) versus

nutritional facts seekers (NFS). Moreover, there are also people who try to eat healthy, but doubt

their ability to eat healthy (and so they don’t have a clear food choice strategy), or other people who

are soft or heavy TL or NFS. All this makes it really complicated for marketers, who should tailor

products on their different targets. Spotlighting nutrition facts or taste and price facts could be

counterproductive for one or the other target (Mai & Hoffmann, 2012). As Raghunathan et al.

(2006) state, highlight in nutritional fact could decrease the association with good taste. Mai and

Hoffmann solution is to make marketers differentiate their communication based on health

consciousness. On this note, a study conducted in 2012 by the researchers Choi, Paek and Whitehill

King, proves that food with nutrient-content claims is perceived healthier than food with taste

claims. Moreover, the respondents preferred the advertisements that matched (nutrient-content

claims with healthy products and taste claim with unhealthy products). This is also in line with what

Raghunathan et al. said. It would be counterproductive if products perceived unhealthy had

nutrient-content claims.

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2.1.4 Different types of FOP labels

Lightbulb labels

These have been experimented in various countries so far: among the companies that have

accepted to put this kind of labels on their products there is Coca-Cola in the UK (Bonotti, 2014;

Loi, 2014). In the Table 1, we can see how the colors were split among the advised daily amount,

according to the Food Standard Agency (FSA): color associated to low quantities (green), medium

quantities (yellow) and high quantities (red) of fat, sugar and salt.

Table 1: Level of fat, sugar and salt associated with the green, yellow and red color in Lightbulb labels (FSA, 2014)

Green / Low level

For 100g of product

Yellow / Medium level

For 100g of product

Red / High level

For 100g of product

Fat 0-3g 3-20g Over 20g

Saturated fat 0-1.5g 1.5-5g Over 5g

Total sugar 0-5g 5-15g Over 15g

Salt 0-0.3g 0.3-1.5g Over 1.5g

*Saturated fat are the principal responsible for cardiac diseases

According to a study carried out in Germany on 420 adults, lightbulb labels (in Figure 4)

have been more effective in making respondents perceive which is the healthier product, than labels

with displayed the guideline daily amounts (GDA) differentiated between women and men.

However, these results didn’t have a significant effect on the final purchase and consumption

(Borgmeier & Westenhoefer, 2009). Therefore, although the perception is of a better product for

our health and although lightbulb labels directly affect the limbic system, without requiring a

cognitive effort, the behavior did not change. As Raghunathan et al. (2006) claim, respondents

could see a product with a red label, perceive it is unhealthy, but think it could be taster than a

healthier one, and purchase it for that reason.

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Figure 12: Traffic light label used in Borgmeier and Westenhoefer (2009) experiment

Other more successful experiments have been done in the latest years. VanEpps, Downs and

Loewenstein (2016), for example, have studied that, in a situation in which people could choose

their lunch meal having a traffic light symbol indicating the calories on the side, the result was a

meaningful reduction of the calories ordered. However, despite these successes that have many

other variables (the meals in VanEpps et al. experiment were complete, cooked by a cafeteria, and

not bought in a supermarket, etc.), studies that have reached a conclusion on the impact of colors on

our behaviors have not been conducted yet (Schuldt, 2013).

Emoticon labels

Form of non-verbal communication based on happy, sad or angry faces: effective but

sometimes inaccurate at the content and relevance level. The combination of emoticons and color

could increase the emotional resonance of the label, especially if the content of the label is

enhanced by adding the GDA (Vasiljevic, Pechey, & Marteau, 2015). In Figure 5 we can see the

representation of this combination as made by Vasiljevic, where they have neutralized the effect of

the calculus of calories when purchasing a snack, taking two snacks with the same amount of

calories.

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Figure 13: Emoticons labels as used by Vasiljevic et al. (2015) for their behavioural experiment

In an experiment conducted by Vasiljevic et al. (2015) on the relative effectiveness of colors

and emoticons, taking into consideration both the perception and the behavior (the final purchase of

the snack), it is emerged that the emoticons are more effective than the colors, due to the stronger

impact that the facial expressions have.

Therefore, according to Andrews, Lin, Levy and Lo (2014) the decision on which nutritional

label to pick, depends on the nature of the food choices. Andrews et al. continue that if the choice of

a product was led by our cognitive side, the labels that specify the GDA would be more suitable to

orient the consumer toward a more balanced nutrition. In this case, indeed, the nutritional label

would ease the deductive learning, which is typical of the cognitive system. On the other side, if the

choice of a product was led by our emotional side, a communication toward colors, emoticons and

images would be the most suitable to make people choose in a more balanced way. When the

content of the label is not textual, indeed, an associative learning is activated, which is typical of the

emotional system. This is the reason why in this research with the survey we will also try to

understand whether our food purchases are led by emotions or our rational side, before commenting

the results of the experiment that depend on that as well.

Stars rating labels

An intermediary solution between the two just explained, in which there is a mix of

cognitive and an emotional impact, is the stars rating label. Lugli (2015), states that this label is

particularly effective: it is, indeed, able to address the cognitive system, without being weighed

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down by textual information. In the American’s Institute of Medicine (IOM, 2011) annual report, it

is stressed the need for label systems that can be clearer to the consumer, and one of the proposals is

the nutrition label stars. This is said to both simplify and clarify what other labels with more

information can’t. The FOP label that you can see in Figure 6 has been proposed by the IOM, after

a study conducted by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Figure 14: Stars ranking label as it has been conceived by the IOM (Goetz, 2011)

Rahkovsky, Lin, Lin, and Lee (2013) develop an experiment that uses the Guiding Stars.

This program, called GSP, has been developed in 2006, and uses stars’ labels like the ones

displayed in Figure 7, to make nutrition choices simpler. The study was done putting these labels on

different kinds of cereals of the Hannaford supermarket chain, and observing its change of sales.

The result was extremely positive: a significant increase of sales for the cereals with three stars, and

a lower demand for cereals with zero or one star, although this depended also on socioeconomic

variables. This paper suggests how these kind of easy-to-find FOP labels can help people select

products with a higher nutritional value in terms of the GSP star rating.

Figure 15: Star ratings as created by the GSP (2006)

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Silhouette labels

These are labels that depict body shape figures characterized by a high, medium or low

percentage of body fat. In this case, since male and female bodies are very different in shape, for a

study conducted by Lugli (2015), it would be necessary to use two different labels with two colors.

The number of silhouettes could vary from a minimum of three to a maximum of seven, as it can be

seen in Figure 8.

Figure 16: Silhouette labels with percentage of body fat specified, as they have been developed from the Department of

Neuromarketing of the University of Pavia, Italy (Lugli, 2015)

The concept behind these silhouettes on the product is that if a person ate only food with

that defined content of sugar, fat and salt, they could expect to develop the percentage of body fat

displayed on top of the body shape correspondent. According to Lugli, the emotion that this label

tries to rise is fear, and the fact that there are only images, and not a text, stimulates the limbic

system. Moreover, more and more people rely on body sensations when evaluating the healthiness

of food (Kristensen, Askegaard & Jeppesen, 2013).

2.1.5 Different types of messages

Song, Halvorsen and Harley (2014), on a study that takes into consideration the messages

displayed on cereal boxes, compare the health-related messages on adults’ packages, and the game

activities messages on children’s packages. The result is that nutrient claims are 31.8% less present

in adults’ packages, even if this can also be explained by the fact that parents who buy cereals food

kids could be more attentive toward healthier products (Miller, Seiders, Kenny, & Walsh, 2011).

Moreover, according to Balasubramanian and Cole (2002), the nutrition claims in the front

of the package remain the main aspect leading to a certain decision of purchase, whether they are

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graphical or textual, and whether they involve the cognitive or limbic system, especially for adults

with low health motivation. This influence can be positive and can be inexistent, so a person could

be motivated in buying a certain product because of the label, or could be unresponsive, indifferent,

but very recent studies say a person will not be reluctant to buy a product because of the front of

package labels (Romero & Biswas, 2016).

2.2 PACKAGING

Packaging is another important marketing tool: for the fact that it reaches consumers at the

very moment of the purchase, and it is not avoidable, it can make food appear healthier than it is

and it can lead people to buying bigger quantities (Chandon, 2013). Especially when a product is

new or unknown to the consumer, marketing claims and design cues are the first thing people rely

on, at the point-of-purchase (Hoch, 2002).

A study conducted by Oakes (2005), shows how people thought eating a Snickers bar (47

calories) would be more fattening than eating a cup of 1% fat cottage cheese, 3 carrots and 3 pears

(569 calories). Oakes (2006) conclusion was that, since people tend to categorize a product healthy

or tasty from the first moment they see it, even before trying it (Kardes, Posavac, & Cronley, 2004),

the name of a product and its description on the package, often influence consumers in a way that is

unrelated with the reality. These health halos (Tangari, Burton, Howlett, Cho, & Thyroff, 2010),

can be created also by the name of the restaurant itself. Another study, indeed, discovered how

people think Subway’s meals contain around 20% less calories than McDonald’s meals (Chandon

& Wansink, 2007). This is a perception but not the reality.

2.2.1 Relation between size and price

Bigger sized packages almost always are cheaper by unit price (except when there is more

competition between smaller sizes or they are on offer). Marketers can do that because they save

money in packaging costs, while consumers buy them because they perceive a better value (Sprott,

Manning & Miyazaki, 2003; Veermer, Steenhuis, & Seidell, 2010). At the same time, in all the

most developed countries, in the recent years there is a trend toward selling product packages and

serving sizes that are larger than the recommended ones by Health and Medicine Departments

(Nielsen & Popkin, 2003; Young & Nestle, 2002). This is accentuated in the United States, where

supersized packages can be more commonly found, and they increase overeating (Rozin, Kabnick,

Pete, Fischler, & Shields, 2003).

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2.2.2 Effect of larger packages

At any age, a part from kids under the age of three (Birch, Engell, & Rolls, 2000), a larger

package is reported to increasing the consumption of that food (Devitt & Mattes, 2004; Zlatevska,

Dubelaar, & Holden, 2014). The opposite is also valid: reducing the size of a package lead to

reducing its consumption (Marchiori, Waroquier, & Klein, 2012). Moreover, even if it is not further

developed in this research, it is worth to mention that, regarding the relation between calories and

size: studies show how the volume matters more than calories to consumers. Indeed, reducing

calories contained in food and increasing the size of the package without raising calories is a

strategy with which both marketers and health departments would be realized (Scott, Nowlis,

Mandel, & Morales, 2008)

2.2.3 New packaging ways

A revolution is the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) market (Sorescu & Spanjol, 2008;

Tyson & Walske, 2016), that allow people to wrap their own food (already cooked or uncooked) in

the store, aiming to attract people who care about the freshness, healthiness and sustainability of

food. Another aspect is the transparency of the package: this aspect both facilitate the monitoring of

the consumption (so reduces consumption) and increases the salience effect (so increases

consumption). Deng and Srinivasan (2013) state that to increase the consumption of healthy food

after the purchase: small types of food should be offered in transparent packages (because the

second effect is superior); big types of food should be offered in opaque packages (because the first

effect is superior). Therefore, there are certain conditions under which paradoxically small packages

can increase consumption.

Apart from the transparency of the package, Argo and White (2012) study how people with

lower appearance self-esteem rely more on the external control properties, such as the size of the

package, or the labels, etc. and will consume more when packages are small (than when there is no

package or the package is big). The implication of this is that, with the aim of reduce

overconsumption: in the small packages, other external control properties, such as nutritional labels,

should be minimized.

2.3 SHELVES ARRANGEMENT

After the labels and the packaging, a third very determining factor is the position of the

products on the shelves. Store factors influence people on what they purchase more than individual

factors (Chevalier, 1975; Curhan, 1974; Frank & Massy, 1970). Therefore, from the 1980s, it has

become a common practice of manufacturers to pay retailers to display their products in a certain

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way in the stores (Klein & Wright, 2007). This could help explaining why, between 1980s and

2000, low-nutrient processed foods have started to be sold in bigger quantities just manipulating its

placement, and why the rate of obesity in the US has more than doubled (Copple, 2002). Moreover,

supermarkets have expanded so much to supply more shelf space. Especially the end-aisle facing

are valued very much, and Sorenson (2009) estimates that 30% of the sales a supermarket does, is

led by the end-aisle displays.

A study conducted by Cohen, Collins, Hunter, Ghosh-Dastidar and Dubowitz (2015), shows

that there is a relation between in-store marketing strategies and Body Mass Index (BMI). This

means that marketing strategies could also be taken into consideration when making regulations to

limit the consumption of less healthy food. An example is in the UK, where parents have protested

and now some of the biggest stores such as Lidl and Tesco have removed candies from the aisles

next to the cash registers. The next step could be removing unhealthy products from the end-aisle

displays.

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3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESIS

These have to be slightly distinguished between the survey and the experiment.

For the survey the research questions are:

a) Which factors are the most relevant for choosing between packages in the comparative

environment of the supermarket?

b) Is the brand something unsurmountable, or could another label make the difference?

c) Are people more and more involved in nutrition aspects? Is there a desire to know more

about the product?

d) Which one is the most effective label? Why?

e) Can a label have a negative impact on a purchase behavior?

f) Is the packaging relevant? Does buying a bigger package mean end up eating more?

g) Are other store factors, such as the shelf positioning, relevant?

While the hypothesis are:

h) Subjects who purchase pasta in a supermarket, Would like to know more about it (Grunert,

& Wills, (2007).

i) Subjects who purchase pasta in a supermarket, Compare the different types of pasta

(Bettman, Luce & Payne, 1988).

j) Subjects who purchase pasta in a supermarket, know which package they are going to buy

before they enter the supermarket (Chevalier, 1975).

k) Subjects who purchase pasta in a supermarket, look at the products in the end-aisle section

(Larson, 2006).

l) For subjects who purchase pasta in a supermarket, the highest quality products are in the

middle shelf (Chandon et al., 2009; Shugan, 1987; Valenzuela, Raghubir, & Mitakakis,

2013).

m) Subjects who purchase a bigger package of pasta in a supermarket, end up eating more

(Devitt & Mattes, 2004; Zlatevska, Dubelaar, & Holden, 2014).

n) Subjects who purchase pasta in a supermarket, are primary led by the different brands

(Chrysochou, 2010).

o) Subjects consider eating healthy something important to them (Lennernäs, Fjellström,

Becker, Giachetti, Schmitt, de Winter, & Kearney, 1997).

p) Subjects are influenced by nutritional information when they purchase (Kozup, Creyer, &

Burton, 2003).

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q) Subjects that do not look for nutritional information when they purchase, consider them if

they see them (Clement, 2007).

r) Subjects consider that unhealthy pasta tastes better then healthier one (Raghunathan et al.,

2006).

Experiment’s hypothesis:

i. Subjects who are not exposed to the display of a label on how much they are considering

their health with that purchase, will buy less healthy food.

ii. Subjects who are exposed to the display of a label on how much they are considering their

health with that purchase, will buy healthier food.

iii. Subjects who are not exposed to the display of a label on how much they are considering

their health with that purchase, are more sensitive to the price.

iv. Subjects who are exposed to the display of a label on how much they are considering their

health with that purchase, are less sensitive to the price.

v. It is possible to manipulate humans by a very short exposure at the point of purchase.

4. METHODOLOGY

A survey will be conducted in Italy. All kind of people living in Italy are going to be considered:

any age, gender and part of Italy. This is going to help answering the first research question, and it

is going to be used as an exploratory phase to structure the experiment.

An experiment is going to be conducted in a Supermarket, to avoid any possible bias there could be

if people knew they were taking part in an experiment. People are not going to be asked questions,

but a generic categorization about age and gender is going to be outlined from observation.

The experiment is going to take place in different days, depending on the affluence in the

supermarket. The aim is to observe the packages of pasta people buy without and with the labels

created and changing the position on the shelves.

The results will either prove a relationship between marketing and food and the fact that people can

be manipulated by marketing strategies, or not. In both cases, there will be a practical implication.

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5. WORK PLAN

Period Activity Description

1.09.16-

30.09.16 Bibliography

Define the topic and start deepen the literature

review

1.10.16 –

31.10.16 Expose

Topic definition, literature review, hypotheses

definition and research model design

1.11.16-

15.11.16 Survey Develop the structure of the survey and design it

16.11.16-

30.11.16

Survey responses and

Experiment planning Spread the survey, plan the experiment

1.12.16 –

20.12.16 Experiment Develop the experiment

20.12.16 –

15.01.17 Analysis

Analyse the survey results and the experiment

results

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