Eating with a Purpose: Consumer Response to Functional Food Health Claims in Conflicting versus Complementary Information Environments

Abstract

Marketers of food products have recently introduced a variety of "functional foods" that promise consumers improvements in targeted physiological functions. However, despite the proliferation of functional food health claims promising more than basic nutrition, little is known about consumer responses to these claims, particularly in information environments in which inconsistent information may be available about the efficacy of a particular functional ingredient. Across two studies, the authors demonstrate that consumers with lower health consciousness are particularly sensitive to conflicting information about the validity of a functional food health claim; specifically, the presentation of conflicting (versus complementary) information significantly lowers their likelihood of choosing a functional over a nonfunctional food. In contrast, consumers with higher health consciousness do not reduce their likelihood of choosing a functional food when confronted with conflicting information. The authors demonstrate that this effect is driven by a confirmatory bias to believe the functional food health claim on the part of more health conscious consumers. The authors discuss implications for the successful marketing of functional foods and for public policy makers and consumers.

Consumer reactions to sustainable packaging: The interplay of visual appearance, verbal claim and environmental concern

“…Our results extend the results of Naylor et al (2009) in the context of ecological consumption. Indeed, similar patterns of evaluations were found between HEC consumers and highly health-conscious consumers when confronted with conflicting information targeting an important issue.…”

“…Rettie and Brewer (2000) propose a slightly different division into visual (e.g., appearance, images) and verbal package elements (e.g., claims and descriptions). We adhere to this division as visual and verbal packaging signals have been reported to influence consumer responses (Kauppinen-R€ ais€ anen, 2014;Naylor, Droms, & Haws, 2009;Orth & Malkewitz, 2008;Wansink, Sonka, & Hasler, 2004).…”

“…Similar phenomena have been revealed in the case of nutritional arguments processing. Naylor et al (2009) showed that consumers with strong health consciousness have a tendency to choose alternatives displaying a nutritional argument through a confirmation bias, even when this argument is presented jointly with a conflicting argument. On the other hand, consumers with weaker health consciousness tend to reject alternatives displaying a nutritional argument jointly with a conflicting argument.…”

Research on the Influence of Conflicting Brand Crisis Information on Consumers’ Brand Attitude

“…Moorman et al (2008) found that after reading the conflicting information from newspaper about the function of vitamin B6, the confidences of consumers for the experts would decline [8]. Naylor et al (2009) demonstrated that, compared to consumers with higher health consciousness, consumers with lower health consciousness significantly lower their likelihood of choosing a functional over a nonfunctional food when faced with conflicting (versus complementary) information [9].…”

“…According to cognitive dissonance theory, the conflicting information requires consumers for more cognitive resources, the more conflict, the more cognitive resources required (Heckler& Childers, 1992; Meyers-Levy & Tybout, 1989) [9] [11]. Compared to consistent information, conflicting information can lead to more ambivalent attitude (Klaus Jonas and Michael Diehl, 1997) [12].…”