The Influence of Nutrition Labeling on Consumers Pur-chase Intention of Healthy Food:Mediation Effect of Perceived Competence and Warmth
To help consumers distinguish and choose healthy foods,some companies label the front of food packaging with Health Selection Labels and other evaluative nutrition labels.Evaluative nutrition labeling has also become an effective strategy for food companies to sell healthy food.However,from market reactions,healthy foods with objective nutrition labels such as Fact Up Front labels are actually more favored by consumers in some cases.It can be seen that the question of which nutrition label should be labeled on the front of healthy food packaging by enterprises(evaluative vs.objective)may have different answers in different situations.How-ever,existing literature has not reached a consensus on this issue.Some studies have found that companies labeling evaluative nutri-tion labels can better promote consumers to purchase healthy food,but some studies have reached the opposite conclusion,finding that consumers prefer healthy food labeled with objective nutrition labels.For this purpose,this study compared the differences in the impact of different types of nutrition labels labeled by enterprises on consumer willingness to purchase healthy food,and further re-vealed the mediating mechanism and moderating variables of this impact.This study validated the research hypothesis through two pilot ex-periments and four formal experiments.Pilot experiment 1 found essential differences in comprehensibility and informativeness between evaluative and objective nutrition labels by manipulating the labeling types of nutrition labels.Pilot experiment 2 showed that consumers can pay attention to the nutrition labels of healthy foods in the stimulating materials.Experiment 1 used whole wheat bread as a stimulus material to demonstrate the impact of nutrition labeling on consumer willingness to purchase healthy food,as well as the competing mediating role of perceived corporate competence and perceived corporate warmth.Experiment 2a provided prelim-inary evidence that using oatmeal sticks as a stimulating material to demonstrate that consumer relationship norms moderated the impact of enterprise labeling on consumer willingness to purchase healthy food.Experiment 2b once again validated the moderating effect by manipulating consumer relationship norms.Experiment 3 demonstrated the moderating effect of comparative prices.This study has several theoretical contributions.Firstly,unlike previous studies,this study proposes for the first time a systematic theoretical framework to answer which nutrition label companies should label to promote consumer purchases of healthy foods.It incorporates conflicting research findings from the past into a complete explanatory framework,filling the research gap related to nutrition labels.Secondly,this study further reveals the mediating mechanism of the impact of nutrition label labeling on purchase intention in different situations under the stereotype content model.For the first time,it is proposed that nutrition label labeling may affect consumer purchase through two opposite paths:perceiving the warmth of the enterprise and perceiving the comparative of the enterprise,which to some extent expands the stereotype content model.Thirdly,this study further finds the moderating effect of comparative prices of healthy foods on the impact of corporate nu-trition labeling on consumer willingness to purchase healthy foods,enriching relevant research on comparative prices.This study also provides some practical insights for governments,businesses,and consumers.Firstly,for the government and social organizations,this study aims to improve the nutritional and health status of Chinese residents,providing policy inspiration for the government to promote healthy food.For example,organizations or companies that establish friendly relationships with consumers through interaction and other means should choose evaluative nutri-tion labels to promote the sales of healthy food,while organizations or companies that are committed to"professional and efficient"and provide consumers with equivalent quality services should label objective nutrition labels to increase consumer purchases of healthy food.Secondly,for food companies,this study proposes a moderating effect of comparative product prices on this impact,helping companies sell healthy products more efficiently.Thirdly,for consumers themselves,this study aims to help them establish a healthy dietary outlook.Although this study focuses on healthy food and discusses consumer decision-making on healthy food from the perspective of corporate behavior,it also serves as a warning to consumers when facing non healthy food and to be cautious of unplanned consumption of unhealthy food caused by corporate mar-keting strategies.
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