Marketing Nutrition
Front–Label Health Claims: When Less is More
Summary
Growing global attention has been directed towards labeling the ingredients, processing methods, and health claims of food. How do consumers process or understand the information on such labels? We examined front–label health claims to determine if the length of a health claim on a front–package label influences a person's processing of nutrition information, and to identify whether shorter claims on the front of a package provide more motivating information when they are accompanied by a more complete health claim on the back–label. To investigate these questions, we professionally modified the package of a commercially available soy burger. One package had a complete (longer) health claim and the other had an abbreviated (shorter) health claim. Both packages types had complete health claims on the back of the box. A survey was conducted on 118 supermarket shoppers over an 8–week period in which participants were asked to answer a variety of questions describing their reaction to one of the soy burger boxes. We found that there was a basic interaction between the length of the claim people saw and the types of thoughts they generated. Shoppers generated more favorable beliefs about the product when reading a short claim on a front–label than if reading a long claim. This suggests that short claims on front–labels may provide people with a greater understanding of the attributes or benefits of a project. This finding has relevant implications for both policy makers and others wanting to communicate health benefits to consumers.
For more information, see Wansink, Brian, Steven T. Sonka, and Clare M. Hasler (2004), "Front–Label Health Claims: When Less is More," Food Policy, 29:6 (December), 659–667. The published version of this article is available at: doi:10.1016/j.foodpol.2004.10.004.
Contact:
Brian Wansink, PhD
Food and Brand Lab, Director
110 Warren Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
Email: foodandbrandlab@cornell.edu
*The study was conducted at the University of Illinois, former location of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab.
