Facts-up-front: should food companies follow the FDA or industry label format? The effects of combining virtue and vice information on consumer evaluations

Zlatevska, N; Chowdhury, RMMI; Tam, L; Holden, S

Facts-up-front: should food companies follow the FDA or industry label format? The effects of combining virtue and vice information on consumer evaluations

Zlatevska, N

Chowdhury, RMMI Tam, L

Holden, S

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Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Marketing Letters, 2019, 30 (3-4), pp. 321 - 334
Issue Date:: 2019-12-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Zlatevska, N https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0936-1529	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Chowdhury, RMMI	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Tam, L https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1116-998X	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Holden, S	en_US
dc.date.issued	2019-12-01	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Marketing Letters, 2019, 30 (3-4), pp. 321 - 334	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	0923-0645	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/138816
dc.description.abstract	© 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature. This research examines consumers’ processing of Facts-up-front food labels as implemented by the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA). Facts-up-front labels include both positive (virtues) and negative (vices) nutritional icons. The processing and relative efficacy of Facts-up-front labels are compared to the original FDA proposal of front-of-pack labels which only included vices. The results suggest heuristic processing of these labels, whereby consumers consider the nutritional icons on the front-of-pack labels similar to affective stimuli. The addition of virtues alongside vices on the label has a compensatory effect, i.e., the food item is evaluated as healthier when there are both virtues and vices on the label compared to when there are only vices. Such heuristic processing of Facts-up-front labels that allows nutritional virtues to compensate for nutritional vices has the potential for consumers evaluating harmful foods as relatively “healthy” thus compromising consumer well-being. These findings illustrate the importance of empirically testing changes to nutritional labels before large scale implementation. Since consumers process front-of-pack labels heuristically and not cognitively, it is not surprising that nutritional literacy does not moderate the effects of label design on healthiness evaluations. Furthermore, the order of the negative and positive information on Facts-up-front labels also has no effect.	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Marketing Letters	en_US
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1007/s11002-019-09504-9	en_US
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccess
dc.subject.classification	Marketing	en_US
dc.title	Facts-up-front: should food companies follow the FDA or industry label format? The effects of combining virtue and vice information on consumer evaluations	en_US
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	3-4	en_US
utslib.citation.volume	30	en_US
utslib.for	1505 Marketing	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Business
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Business/Marketing Discipline
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access	*
pubs.issue	3-4	en_US
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.volume	30	en_US

Abstract:

© 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature. This research examines consumers’ processing of Facts-up-front food labels as implemented by the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA). Facts-up-front labels include both positive (virtues) and negative (vices) nutritional icons. The processing and relative efficacy of Facts-up-front labels are compared to the original FDA proposal of front-of-pack labels which only included vices. The results suggest heuristic processing of these labels, whereby consumers consider the nutritional icons on the front-of-pack labels similar to affective stimuli. The addition of virtues alongside vices on the label has a compensatory effect, i.e., the food item is evaluated as healthier when there are both virtues and vices on the label compared to when there are only vices. Such heuristic processing of Facts-up-front labels that allows nutritional virtues to compensate for nutritional vices has the potential for consumers evaluating harmful foods as relatively “healthy” thus compromising consumer well-being. These findings illustrate the importance of empirically testing changes to nutritional labels before large scale implementation. Since consumers process front-of-pack labels heuristically and not cognitively, it is not surprising that nutritional literacy does not moderate the effects of label design on healthiness evaluations. Furthermore, the order of the negative and positive information on Facts-up-front labels also has no effect.

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:

http://hdl.handle.net/10453/138816