A neurobehavioral account of differential consumer responses to price and in-store display between un/healthy food

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to elucidate some of the complexity around food consumption by drawing from neuroscience research of food as a motivated choice (i.e. a neurobehavioral process sensitive to dopaminergic response to food and environmental cues such as marketing). The authors explore the single and compounded effect of the motivational salience of food’s intrinsic reinforcing value tied to its sugar content and that of two marketing food cues, price and in-store display, on actual consumer purchase behavior. Design/methodology/approach The authors test the above hypotheses in two perceived “healthy” product categories with a wide distribution of sugar content. The authors estimate a within-category model using three years of retail transaction data to test the effect on weekly sales. Findings The authors confirm the single effect of each of food’s and marketing cues’ motivational salience as well as their compounded effect with high-motivational-salience food being less price elastic and more susceptible to in-store display activities. Research limitations/implications This research highlights the need to complement current reliance on unhealthy/healthy perception with finer grained objective evidence linked to the formulation of the food itself and the marketing applied to them. Practical implications The present study findings may help marketing managers and policymakers develop better targeted pricing and display strategies for low- and high-motivational-salience food, attempting to strike a better balance between consumer welfare and commercial performance. Originality/value This paper is one of the few that links real-world market outcomes to predictions derived from a unique combination of consumer neuroscience and neurobiology of food, advancing data-driven decisions.

Bibliometric-Based Evaluation of the Neuromarketing Research Trend: 2010–2021

“…For example, Zou and Liu (2019) explored the influence of nutrition information on consumers’ decision-making to explore whether the label disclosing food ingredients by offline stores should be strengthened for the consumption of healthy food. Furthermore, Labban et al (2021) studied the influence of commodity displays and healthy/unhealthy food on consumers’ purchase decisions. Some researchers have also discussed the influence of food health evaluations on consumers’ choice of packaged food through neuroscience experiments ( Thomas et al, 2021 ).…”

“…The cluster analysis results regarding domain user keywords indicated that the most dominant clusters were “Consumer neuroscience,” “Complexity,” “fMRI,” “Nutrition information,” “Psychology,” and “Decision making.” Research hotspots focused on consumer decision analysis ( Yang et al, 2018 ; Shi and Trusov, 2021 ), hybrid neuroscience tools (e.g., applying EEG, fMRI, fNIRS, neurophysiology, and so forth) ( Clark et al, 2018 ; Jai et al, 2021 ); complexity ( Pieters et al, 2010 ), and nutritional information ( Labban et al, 2021 ; Thomas et al, 2021 ) as leading research frontiers. To further understand the time-varying hot topics, this study analyzed the keyword progression for keyword emergence.…”

“…The former focuses on food safety information, particularly on the issue of product information disclosure. Related studies include those of Labban et al (2021) and Thomas et al (2021) . These studies have focused on the orientation of consumer behavioral decisions extended by traditional food safety ( Ortega et al, 2014 ).…”

Using social media to analyze consumers' attitude toward natural food products

“…This result is in line with the findings of previous research on more intense promotion activities in unhealthy versus healthy food categories, higher levels of availability of unhealthy versus healthy food as well as the level of concerns of consumers regarding unhealthy versus healthy food categories (Ma et al. , 2013; Chandon and Wansink, 2012; Dube et al ., 2014; Labban et al ., 2021). The low number of tweets on food policy is yet another evidence for the necessity of stronger and clearer food policies particularly about natural food (FDA, 2018; Goldstein and Mudge, 2020).…”