Abstract
Food and beverage manufacturers now regularly display "just below" calorie amounts (e.g., 99, 199, 299) in advertisements, presumably to appeal to health-motivated consumers. "Just below" values are those that fall one or more digits below a round number, most commonly seen as nine-ending numbers. However, although nine-ending prices are known to stimulate purchase intent, it is unclear whether or when nine-ending calorie labeling shapes food preferences. The present research shows that when consumers view indulgent foods with just-below (vs. round-ending) calorie amounts, they exhibit higher consumption intentions, purchase intent, and consumption behavior, yet only if they are high in health motivation. This is due to a tendency for health-motivated consumers to overweigh the leftmost digit in multidigit numbers - a cognitive bias known as the "level effect." This bias results in the perception that just-below (vs. round) -ending indulgent foods have relatively fewer calories, decreasing anticipated guilt and increasing consumption intentions and behavior. The superiority of just-below calorie presentation under health motivation is attenuated with the addition of reference intake labeling (i.e., % daily calorie intake values), which equalizes the magnitude of nine- and round-ending calorie indulgent foods.
Original language | English (US) |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 606-619 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Journal of Consumer Research |
Volume | 46 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Oct 1 2019 |
Keywords
- calorie ending
- calories
- health motivation
- indulgent foods
- level effect
- nutrition labels
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Business and International Management
- Anthropology
- Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
- Economics and Econometrics
- Marketing