Health claim related Health Halo; theeffects of product enhancement, self- and
functional congruity and health consciousness on the perception of non-related product attributes and health halo.
Name Tessa Eva Kortman
Studentnr. 11146613
Date submission June 24, 2016
Version Final version
Qualification study MSc. In Business Administration – Marketing Track Name of institution Amsterdam Business School, UvA
Statement of originality
This document is written by student Tessa Eva Kortman who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
Table of Contents
Subject Page Statement of originality Abstract 1 1. Introduction 2 2. Literature review 5 2.1 Halo effect 52.2 The Health Halo 6
2.2.1 Health Claims 7
2.3 Firm intention and food alteration 9
2.4 (Perceived) congruity 10
2.5 Health consciousness 14
2.6 Consumers’ demographics; gender and age 16
2.7 Aim of the study 16
3. Research design 18
4. Results 23
5. Discussion and conclusion 33
References 38
Abstract
Health claims have become of increasing interest to consumers, marketers and policy makers. The objective of this research was to study when health claims on soy milk products lead to health halo, but also if firm enhancements of a claimed attribute, funtional- and self-congruity and health consciousness moderate the level of health halo. In this study, conclusions on health halo are based on perceived evaluations of non-related product attributes as opposed to the claimed attribute. A survey with a total of 218 respondents were randomly assigned to one out of three conditions, namely; natural claim condition, added claim condition and no claim (control) condition. The results showed that claim conditions did not differ significantly from the no claim condition on the perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes, and thus not in health halo. Also the added condition compared to the natural condition showed no significant difference in perceived evaluations of non-related product attributes. Moreover, none of the moderators had significant effects on perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes.
Keywords
Health claim; health halo; funtional congruity; image congruity; health consciousness ; product attributes
1. Introduction
Health claims have become of increasing interest to both consumers and policy makers. To support healthy eating, government policies help consumers make healthier food choices by means of nutrition information, such as labeling and health claims (Provencher & Jacob, 2016). Besides governmental meddling, marketers have been able to capitalize on the
consumer trend towards healthier foods (Lee, Shimizu, Kniffin, and Wansink, 2013). Despite the government’s intention to improve decision making by adding health claims to product packages, these claims can also be misunderstood or misinterpreted by consumers
(Provencher & Jacob, 2016), under the supervision of keen marketeers. One explanation for these misinterpretations is an influential heuristic that consumers faultily rely on known as the health halo. This halo effect, whereby an initial favorable impression promotes subsequent favorable evaluations on unrelated dimensions (Schuldt and Schwarz, 2012), can occur for products that have a healthy attribute or claim. When consumers apply the halo effect to explain how one healthy attribute (e.g. no cholesterol), leads consumers to assume that the food product offers other healthy but unclaimed attributes (e.g. low in fat; Andrews, Netemeyer and Burton, 1998), we can speak of the health halo effect.
As these health concerns have become more prevalent, marketing communication can be of major influence on consumers’ perception of what is a healthy product. This study will focus on how firm enhancement or addition of healthy attributes (firm intentionality), health consciousness of the consumer, image congruity (between the product and the consumer) and functional congruity affect health halo.
Consumer research has demonstrated halo effects arising from claims on
food packaging that promote misperceiving products more positively on other dimensions (Sutterlin & Siegrist, 2015; Schuldt, Muller,& Schwarz, 2012; Schuldt & Schwarz, 2010).
halo. Interestingly, while we know firm intentionality in ‘green’ products has a negative effect on the halo that green products normally elicit (Newman, Gorlin & Dahr, 2014). Here,
consumers expect an improvement in one attribute of the product to lead to a reduced quality of other attributes. But what does the knowledge about firm intentionality in food alteration do for the health halo, since healthy attributes are rated from a utilitarian point a view and ‘green’ products hedonically (Newman, Gorlin & Dahr, 2014)? And also, do these results differ in the light of health conscious consumers, ideal (social) image congruity and functional congruity.
Numerous studies have found a positive relationship between image congruity (between product image and self-image) and product evaluation for such products as automobiles, cleaning products, cigarettes, magazines, home furnishings, and clothing (Claiborne & Sirgy, 2015). But no studies on health halo consider image congruity as a moderating factor. Also, past research argues that congruency effects on product evaluation are more likely to emerge when the congruency is between the product image and the ideal self-image (Chang, 2007; Sirgy, 2015). Therefore, this study will focus on the effect of ideal and ideal-social-self-image congruity on health halo. Besides image congruity, functional congruity effects on health halo are researched. According to Hahnel et al. (2014) functional congruity due to the perceived match between the claimed healthy attribute and consumers’ individual demand could enhance health halo, leading to an enhanced positive evaluation of the other product attributes.
This study is of practical value and relevance to firms and managers, because it is not only important for a firm and its managers to know that health claims lead to health halo, but also what factors affect this health halo. As the effects of firm intentionality, congruity and health consciousness are present in other studies and influence halos for different product categories, they could well influence health halo. In addition, if firms and managers know to
what extent the results differ, they can acquire experts and set up strategies to manage these effects more efficiently and effectively.
The theoretical relevance of this study is that it adds in depth knowledge to the literature on health halo. It focuses on different factors, knowledge on firm intentionality, image congruity and functional congruity, that might affect the health halo. Additionally, the soy milk product category in combination with health halo research is a scarce combination.
2. Literature review
This chapter provides a comprehensive review of the literature about the key concepts of this study, in order to analyze what has already been studied about the halo effect and in specific the health halo and also the moderating effects of firm intentionality, the congruency between the product-image and the consumers’ ideal (social) image and the level of health
consciousness of the consumer. First, some basic knowledge is provided on the halo effect and the health halo in particular. Second, previous research on some key variables that need to be present for the health halo to occur are given. Hereafter, I will elaborate on health
consciousness, firm intentionality and image congruity in general and in relationship to health halo. Also, an analysis of the possible associations with demographics is given. Finally, based on this review, a conceptual framework and hypotheses are developed that will be tested in this study.
2.1. The Halo-Effect
To be able to explore the health halo, it is important to understand what the general term halo effect means and where it comes from. The halo effect, whereby an initial favorable
impression promotes subsequent favorable evaluations on unrelated dimensions, has a long history in social psychology (Schuldt and Schwarz, 2012). Thorndike (1920) was the first to mention the term halo effect. In his study, participants were asked to estimate a person on a number of traits (intelligence, reliability etc.) and it appeared that the estimates of the same man in these number of different traits were very highly correlated and very evenly correlated (Thorndicke, 1920). It consequently appeared probable that those giving the ratings were unable to analyze out these different aspects of the person's nature and achievement and rate
by a marked tendency to think of the person in general as rather good or rather inferior and to color the judgments of the qualities by this general feeling (Thorndicke, 1920). It appeared that the participants used knowledge of one trait to rate the other non-corresponding traits. This effect is known as the halo effect (Thorndicke, 1920). Boatwright, Kalra and Zhang (2008) explain how this, in a marketing context, implies that consumers will use an observable attribute to infer an unobservable one. This means that if a consumer has
knowledge of a single product attribute (e.g. high in calcium), this knowledge can influence their ratings about that product on other, non-corresponding, attributes (e.g. high in vitamins).
2.2 The health Halo
More recently, research on the halo effect has been stretched to health-related halo effect (Sutterlin & Siegrist, 2015; Schuldt, Muller,& Schwarz, 2012; Schuldt & Schwarz, 2010). Andrews, Netemeyer and Burton (1998) describe how the halo effect has been applied to help explain how one healthy attribute (e.g. no cholesterol) leads consumers to assume that foods offer other healthy but unclaimed attributes (e.g. low in fat or low in calories). Here, ‘health halo’ is as a general perception, that a product is healthy across a range of attributes (e.g., calories, sodium, fat) due to inference making of one healthy attribute (Peloza, Ye and Montford, 2015; Andrews, Burton, & Netemeyer, 2000). Schuldt and Schwarz (2010) show how participants provided us with lower calorie judgments when a product was claimed to be organic—which says something about production process and not nutrient content per se. Moreover, in a study by Schuldt and Schwarz (2012), participants evaluating chocolate provided lower calorie judgments when the chocolate was described as fair trade—a claim silent on calorie content but signifying that trading partners received just compensation for their work. Their knowledge on one attribute (product is fair trade or product is organic) colored their judgment on a non-corresponding attribute (product is low in calories). Also,
Sutterlin and Siegrist (2015) found that if the product information for a particular product contained ’fruit sugar’ compared to ‘sugar’, it could be interpreted as a cue that the product is relatively healthy on other non-corresponding attributes. These studies are consistent with prior research showing that compared to products without a health cue, consumers had more favorable ratings of all attributes of a product and higher purchase intentions after they were exposed to a general statement claiming that the product was healthy on one, unrelated,
attribute (Andrews, Netemeyer, and Burton 1998; Roe, Levy, and Derby 1999; Kozup, Creyer, & Burton, 2003). Hence, the health halo gained significant interest over the past few years. For governments, the way food is marketed is commonly identified as one of the primary reasons for the global obesity epidemic (Chandon, 2012). For marketers, it can be an easy method to have a large influence on their consumers. Since prior research showed that consumers had more favorable ratings of other non-related product attributes after they were exposed to a health claim regarding a specific product attribute (Andrews, Netemeyer, and Burton 1998; Roe, Levy, and Derby 1999; Kozup, Creyer, & Burton, 2003), a general health halo is expected in this study for the conditions where the product is carrying a health claim. These health halos are expected to be present in the health claim condition as opposed to the control condition where no health claim regarding a healthy attribute is presented, meaning that the estimates regarding the non-related product attributes are expected to be higher in the health claim conditions compared to the control condition. This difference in perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes between claim and no claim condition can be ascribed to health halo (H1).
2.2.1 Health claims
As mentioned, consumers had more favorable ratings of other (non-related) product attributes and higher purchase intentions after they were exposed to a healthy attribute specific
statement (Schuldt and Schwarz, 2010; Schuldt and Schwarz, 2012). Consumer research has demonstrated halo effects arising from claims on food packaging (e.g., “organic,” “no
cholesterol”) that promote misperceiving products more positively on other dimensions (e.g., low-calorie, low-fat; Schuldt and Hannahan, 2013). Several researchers have proposed that the halo effect is the explanatory theoretical framework behind consumer motivation on health claims (Chandon & Wansing, 2007; Roe et al., 1999; Wansink & Chandon, 2006). Thereby, health claims have been explained as the cognitive bias (health halo), and the presence of such a claim makes the consumer rate the product higher on other attributes not mentioned in the claim (Choi and Springston, 2014). Wills, Genannt Bonsmann, Kolka and Grunert (2012) show that, depending on whether and how consumers understand the health claim, they will develop an attitude towards the claim, which in turn may affect the attitude to other attributes of the product bearing the claim. These health claims on food products are often used as a means to highlight scientifically proven health benefits associated with consuming those foods (Wills, Genannt Bonsmann, Kolka & Grunert, 2012). But
manufacturers often include claims on their products with underlying motives to advertise and set apart their goods from competitors (van buul & Brouns, 2015).
These claims used to be related to sensory aspects of the food products (with only 10.4% of all claims being related to nutrition and health), however a rapid shift occurred in the past few years altering the focus to a large majority being nutrition and health related claims (van Buul & Brouns, 2015). The ingredient, the type of benefit claimed and the familiarity with both ingredient and benefit have a positive impact on the consumer’s
acceptance of the claim (Wills et al., 2012). When a health benefit is well known, acceptance of the health claim is stronger (Wills et al., 2012).
The acceptance of the health claim is also stronger if the ingredient responsible for the benefit is mentioned (Jesionkowska, Sijtsema, Konopacka and Symoneaux, 2009; Hasler,
2008). Furthermore, nutrition and health claims are not only used to highlight specific properties of foods that contain beneficial ingredients, but also when these ingredients are added (Wills, Genannt Bonsmann, Kolka and Grunert, 2012). As framing and wording has proven to impact consumers’ reactions slightly (Wills et al., 2012), firm intentionality in food alteration (e.g. added nutrients) might have an effect as well.
2.3 Firm Intention and Food Alteration
Much research has been done on the effect of firm intentionality on consumer buying intention in the light of ‘green-products’ and ‘corporate social responsibility’ (Chernev and Blair, 2015; Newman, Gorlin and Dhar, 2014), but not so much is known about firm intentionality in altering food to obtain certain health claims and its effect on health halo. Newman, Gorlin and Dhar (2014) demonstrate that information about a company’s intentions in designing the product plays an import role in consumers’ evaluations.
Consumers are less likely to purchase a green product when they perceive that the company intentionally made the product better for the environment compared to when the same environmental benefit occurred as an unintended side effect (Newman, Gorlin and Dhar, 2014). The authors argue that this is due to consumers making trade-offs. When the product is changed to make it more environmentally beneficial, it is expected to lose quality in other product attributes. In the study by Newman, Gorlin and Dhar (2014) the improved
environmental benefits of the product are expected to result in reduced product performance. This basic intended (vs. unintended) effect could be generalizable to other types of perceived tradeoffs. For instance, Schuldt and Hannahan (2013) showed that, while organic foods were seen as healthier on all attributes compared to conventional foods, they were rated as less tasty. Consumers rely on health claims and the attitudes towards these claimed attributes spill-over to non-related product attributes, but there is no research on the intended compared to
unintended healthy attribute claims. It could be argued that artificially adding nutrients to obtain a nutritional health claim will not have the same (health halo) effect as when a product naturally holds certain nutrients. Changing a product by adding or enhancing a healthy attribute, could also change consumer evaluations of the product on other attributes. In line with Newman, Gorlin and Dhar (2014) products enhanced by the firm are expected to lose quality in other product attributes. However, these results seem different for products in the food categorie. Peloza, Ye and Montford (2015) show that corporate-level CSR activities directly affect consumer evaluations of food product attributes through the creation of a health halo. According to Peloza et al. (2015) this inference of a health halo is driven by
expectations that the firm is committed to consumer interests that go beyond the bottom line. Furthermore, if consumers’ expectation of healthy food is not hedonically taste but rather functionally utilitarian (Chandon & Wansink, 2007; Raghunathan, Naylor and Hoyer, 2006), (intended) health claims will increase health halo effects on perceivably healthy foods. Also, consumers may go beyond the literal meaning of the producer’s claim (Schuldt, 2011) and infer that a producer who enhances their product with a healthy attribute may also care about other health-related aspects of the product. Therefore, there is a greater likelihood that
attribute-based appeals such as an added or enhanced health attribute produces positive effects for non-related food attributes of the same product. For this study, a higher health halo is expected in the condition where the product is enhanced by the firm (added condition)
compared to the condition where no enhancements are made (natural condition; H2). Besides firm intentionality in food alteration, many other factors are expected to have some sort of effect on the health halo.
2.4 (Perceived) congruity
Value-expressive and utilitarian appeals may impact the consumer through two different psychological processes; self-congruity and functional congruity (Johar, and Sirgy, 1991).
Self-congruity models are based on a cognitive matching between the attributes of a product which form the product's image and a consumer's self-image relative to those attributes (Claiborne & Sirgy, 2015). Products, suppliers, and services are assumed to have personality images, just as people do (Sirgy, 1985). These personality images are not
determined by the physical characteristics of the product alone, but by a host of other factors such as advertising, price, stereotype of the generalized users, and other marketing and psychological associations (Sirgy, 1985). According to Sirgy (1985) this type of product image has been assumed by consumer theorists to interact with the consumer’s self-concept and effect a so-called self-image/product image congruity. The more the product-image and consumers’s self-image match, the higher the level of image congruity. For example,
consumers that value organic ways of food processing have higher self-image congruence or congruity with organic food products compared to conventional products.
According to self-concept theory, self-image is a person’s perception of his or her own abilities, characteristics, limitations, appearance, and personality (Rosenberg, 1979). Unlike other attitudes, which are perceptual products of an external object, self-concept is an image shaped by the very person holding the image (Hong & Zinkhan, 1995).
The marketing literature identifies four dimensions of self-concept to explain and predict attitudes and behavior: (1) actual self-concept (“me as I am”), how a person sees himself or herself; (2) ideal-self-concept (“the good me”), how a person would like to see himself or herself; (3) social self-concept, how consumers think others see them; (4) ideal social self-concept, how a person would like to be perceived by other people (Hosany & Martin, 2012). Chang (2007) argues that congruency effects are more likely to emerge when the congruency is between the product image and the ideal self-image, as opposed to the actual self-image for products consumed in public and for value-expressive products, that is, products associated with certain stereotypical images. Also, Sirgy (2015) argues that product
evaluation, or evaluation of certain product attributes, is more affected by ideal and/or ideal-social congruity than by self- and/or ideal-social congruity. Thus, for this study it is most interesting to look at ideal (social) self-image as the health halo influences product (attribute) evaluation. It is not the image congruity on itself that affects consumer’s product evaluation and buying intention, but whether or not consumers perceive this fit to be present. Hong and Zinkhan (1995) showed in their study that advertising appeals congruent with viewers’ self-concept are superior to incongruent appeals in terms of enhancing advertising effectiveness. Advertising effectiveness was operationalized as product evaluation and purchase intentions. In their research, image congruity (between the ad and the consumer’s self-image) positively affects product evaluation and consequently increases purchase intentions. Alike, health claim appeals congruent with the consumers’ self-concept could enhance product evaluation,
evaluation of non-related product attributes, and if significantly different from attribute evaluations from image incongruity in no claim appeals, this could be assigned to a higher health halo in the congruent compared to the incongruent appeals. Peloza, Ye and Montford (2015) show that corporate-level CSR activities directly affect consumer evaluations of food product attributes through the creation of a health halo. According to Peloza et al. (2015) this inference of a health halo is driven by expectations that the firm is committed to consumer interests that go beyond the bottom line. With image congruency, the health claim may serve a symbolic statement, transferring the healthy image from the presence of a claim to the non-related product attributes. Higher ideal-image congruency with the product carrying a health claim compared to the product without a health claim could be explained by a larger health halo. In line with the results from Hong and Zinkhan (1995), congruency between the
product-image caused by the advertised attribute with the consumers self-concept leads to an enhanced effectiveness of the advertised attribute and an enhanced positive evaluation of the product. Thus, congruency caused by the health claim could enhance evaluations of other
attributes, leading to an enhanced evaluation compared to the products without a health claim. This difference can consequently be ascribed to health halo. Thus, ideal- or ideal-social-image congruity could lead to a larger health halo effect.
Numerous studies have found a positive relationship between image congruence (between product image and self-image) and attitudes (consisting of a range of attributes) for such products as automobiles, cleaning products, cigarettes, magazines, home furnishings, and clothing (Claiborne & Sirgy, 2015). But what about food products? Research on the
congruency effect has shown that health messages framed to match a person’s self-image are more effective than mismatched messages (Updegraff, Sherman, Luyster and mann, 2007). In line with prior studies, a higher health halo effect is expected when there is image congruency between the product image and the ideal and/or ideal-social self-image. Or in other words, a higher perceived evaluation for non-related product attributes is expected for products with a health claim compared to products without a health claim, and we expect this difference to be larger when there is image congruity between the product and the ideal or ideal social self. Thus a larger health halo effect is expected for image congruity, both ideal and ideal social, in a health claim condition (H3).
In addition to self-congruity, consumers can also evaluate a product based on it’s functional or utilitarian attributes. Functional congruity is defined as the match between the beliefs of product utilitarian attributes (performance-related) and the audience's referent attributes (Johar and Sirgy, 1991). The referent (e.g., ideal) attributes are the criteria used to evaluate the actual performance characteristics of the product (Johar and Sirgy, 1991). For example, a milk product may be evaluated along a set of utilitarian attributes such as good for bone structure, supports muscle growth, strengthens teeth, and tasting good. The audience may have beliefs about the actual product's characteristics along these dimensions and also referent (e.g., ideal) points or standards used to judge the relative goodness of the beliefs
about a certain product (Johar and Sirgy, 1991). According to Hahnel et al. (2014) the perceived match between presented product attributes and participants’ individual demand (perceived matching) increases product evaluation. Functional congruity due to the perceived match between the claimed healthy attribute and consumers’ individual demand could
enhance health halo, leading to an enhanced positive evaluation of the other product attributes. This perception, in turn, was related to consumer buying intention: participants perceiving that product attributes more closely matched their individual demand reported stronger purchase intentions (Hahnel et al., 2014). Therefore, consumers with a personal focus on the claimed attribute are expected to show higher health halo’s compared to consumers that do not have this specific personal focus, in line with functional congruity theory. For example, consumers with weak bone structure might value health claims with a focus on calcium more than people with normal bone structure. This leads to the expectation that consumers with a higher functional congruity between the claimed attribute and the attributes they value, show higher estimates of other non-related product attributes (H4). If so, this difference can be assigned to health halo.
2.5 Health Consciousness
Health consciousness assesses the readiness to undertake health actions (Becker et al., 1977, as mentioned in Michaelidou & Hassan, 2008). Health-conscious consumers are concerned about their health; they strive to enhance and/or sustain their state of well-being by engaging in healthy behaviors, such as consuming healthy food (Mai and Hoffman, 2012). Mai and Hoffman (2012) found that when designing healthy food products for less health-conscious consumers, taste should be the top priority, whereas for health-conscious consumers, the healthy nature of a product may compensate for a certain loss in taste. This distinction
has opposite effects for both groups (Mai and Hoffman, 2012), with lower levels of health-consciousness moderating the health halo effect. May and Hoffman (2012) argue that the level of health consciousness determines the quality of the attributes (health related versus health unrelated) these segments consider important. Participants with high levels of health consciousness marked health related attributes as more important. The more important the consumer finds the claimed attribute, the higher the health halo (Mai and Hofman, 2012). These results originate from a study in dairy products. It would be interesting to see if the results hold within other product categories, such as a replacement like soy milk.
Findings of the study performed by Bower, Saadat, and Whitten (2003) indicated consumers with a high health concern to have a higher intention to purchase spreads with a health claim due to the general perception that the product is healthy across a range of attributes. Moreover, the rationale to include health consciousness stems from the findings that consumers with higher levels of health-consciousness shift their product evaluations in the presence of nutrition and health labels in a direction which is consistent with their health-related attitudes and beliefs (Sabbe, Verbeke, Deliza, Matta, & Van Damme, 2009), leading to higher health halo’s for health conscious consumers. Thus, the higher the health
consciousness of the consumer, the larger the health halo (larger difference in perceived evaluation of other non-related product attributes of the product compared to the no claim condition; H5). Note that there is a compelling alternative hypothesis: consumers with highly claim-relevant personal values presumably know more about the claim and thus may be less vulnerable to these unwarranted healthy inferences because they should realize that the claimed attribute is irrelevant to the judgment of other product attributes (Schuldt, 2011). Consequently, consumers with high health-consciousness have more knowledge regarding the claim, which results in less unwarranted healthy inferences (=lower health halo) as they know the claimed attribute is irrelevant to judgment of the other product attributes (H6). The present
research tests these competing predictions.
2.6 Consumers’ Demographics; gender and age
Besides earlier mentioned characteristics that can influence the health halo, there are also other factors used as a control in this study. Consumers’ gender and age may cause differences in the effect of health halo. In a study by Ares and Gámbaro (2007)different gender and age groups showed different preference patterns for the food concepts with different carriers, showing the influence of sociodemographic variables such as gender and age in determining the acceptance of foods. Additionaly, in a study by Drewnowski, Moskowitz, Reisner and Krieger (2009) there were major differences between women and men. Interestingly, men were far more likely to call a product healthy even in the absence of a health claim and men were less likely to be persuaded by health claims compared to women. Drewnowski (2009) also showed that perception of healthiness was not affected by age, expect for the claims regarding calcium. These claims proved to have higher utilities among older respondents. The study covered in this thesis does not only focus on evaluation of non-related product attributes, but also has a focus on calcium non-related health claims. Therefore, gender and age will be taken into consideration in this study.
2.7 Aim of the study
The aim of this study is to address this research gap, assessing whether firm intentionality, functional congruity and ideal (social) image congruity between self-image and product-image may influence the health halo.
In line with the reviewed literature, a moderating effect of firm intentionality on the health halo is expected, with higher health halo for a firm intentionally altering its product by
adding a healthy attribute. Additionally, the effect of ideal (social) image congruity on health halo will be assessed. In line with the above literature, consumers in health claim conditions will be expected to have larger health halos with ideal (social) image congruency as opposed to consumers with ideal (social) image incongruity. Consumers with a specific focus on the attributed claim will be expected to have even higher health halo effects compared to consumers that don’t have this personal focus. Thus, health halo is expected to be higher when we can speak of functional congruity compared to functional incongruity with the claimed attribute. Also, the consumers’ health consciousness, gender and age are considered during analysis, with the research question being: “what is the effect of (ideal image and functional) congruity, firm intentionality and health consciousness on the health halo effect and do gender and age affect this relationship?”.
3. Research design
Participants
218 Dutch participants, of which 115 women, (M = 32 years, SD =13,25) were recruited via email and social media.
Materials
The research was conducted in the form of an online questionnaire using Qualtrics survey software. The questionnaire was completed on a computer of the participants’ choosing. All data analysis was performed with IBM SPSS Statistics.
Product
To avoid possible influence of a well-known brand, an imaginary brand of soy milk was used. Soy milk has been gaining an increasing interest from food industries since the last decade for its nutritional and health claims (Behrens, Villanueva, & Da Silva, 2007). Well-known health-benefits, as benefits for bone health, can be ascribed to soy milk and soybean consumption (Hasler, 1998; Villegas, Carbonell, & Costell, 2008). Also, Reilly, Lanou, Barnard, Seidl and Green (2006) show how soymilk can be a trustworthy alternative for the lactose intolerant or those avoiding milk for any other reason. The product in this study is in some ways similar to the products from the Alpro brand. In this way we can use a rather unfamiliar product (soymilk with macadamia nuts), where a health claim on calcium is legitimate. The study will have three manipulations of the product. The first will be a variant soy milk with a health claim stating that it ‘naturally contains calcium. Calcium is good for the bones’ (unintended or natural condition). The second variant will be identical on all features, except the claim will
third manipulation will have no health claim but will be identical on all other features (control condition).
Procedure
Upon opening the online questionnaire, participants will be randomly assigned to one of the three conditions. Next, participants have to give informed consent before starting the
questionnaire. Participants read the scenario corresponding to the condition they will be assigned to. After reading the scenarios, participants will have to complete the manipulation check, followed by indicating their buying intention for the product in the scenario. Followed by some questions that help define the level of health-consciousness of the consumer.
Furthermore, subjects will evaluate their own self-conception (ideal self-image) through an adapted version of Graeff (1996)’s product image dimensions. Subjects will be instructed to indicate the extent to which each scale item describes the product and their ideal and ideal social image. Finally, demographic information on the participants will be collected (gender and age).
Scenario’s
To manipulate the perception of the firm’s intentionality in product enhancement, pictures portraying the soy milk product and extra information on the product and the claim will be presented. Three different scenarios with differences in intentionality of the firm (unintended, intended and control – no information on intent) will be used. All scenarios will be phrased identically, except for a single sentence indicating the intention of the firm (extra added calcium; naturally contains calcium or no information on nutrients). The structure of our survey is based on the research on fair trade chocolate health halo by Schuldt, Muller, and Schwarz (2012). Participants will be randomly assigned by computer algorithm to read a brief
one-paragraph description of a fictional brand of soy milk called SO. Soy milk that was either described naturally containing calcium, having added calcium or with no information on nutrients. Otherwise, the three descriptions were identical (see appendix 1). As in Schuller et al. (2012), no mention of the claim was made in the control condition.
Manipulation check
The perceived level of calcium will be measured by the question “This SO. Soy milk product is high in calcium” answered using a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree). The success of the health claim manipulation will be assessed by the participants’ estimates of the amount of calcium for the soy milk product presented to them.
Health consciousness
To measure the health-consciousness of our participants we will use the General health interest (GHI) (see appendix 1), as pretested and used by Sabbe, Verbeke, Deliza, Matta, and Van Damme (2009). We added a question on calcium, as the health claim in this study covers this nutrient (see appendix E). This resulted in an 9-item-7-point likert-scale (ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7)) that can be used to measure health-consciousness. In this study, the GHI proved to be internally consistent (Cronbach’s alpha = .881).
Perceived functional Congruity
Additionally, the functional congruity variable was assessed using a 2-item, 7- point scale. Participants were asked to evaluate the product’s performance in the amount of calcium. This Category was added to the General Health Interest, allowing us to measure participants’ value of the level of calcium in their diet. The difference score between the value of calcium and the estimate of calcium in the presented product was used as the functional congruity score. This
method was based on previous research on congruency by Wan and Schnell (2007).
Perceived Image Congruity
Moreover, self-congruity was measured by pretesting image dimensions for the Soy Milk product. This method was first used by Greaff (1996). Greaff (1996) pointed out that only those image dimensions that are related to the product being tested should be included in the image measures. Therefore, 18 pretest subjects were asked to indicate how relevant each of 6 different image dimensions were to describing the personality of the typical consumer of the SO. Soy milk with macadamia nuts. Each image dimension was rated on a 7-point scale varying from “Not at all . . .” to “Very much associated with (relevant to) describing the personality of the typical owner of this product (Graeff, 1996)”. The image dimensions used in this study were: healthy – unhealthy, independent – dependent, health conscious – non-health conscious, fit – unfit, strong – weak, natural – unnatural. All these dimensions, which were consistently rated at least moderately relevant to the image of the So. Soymilk with macadamia nuts, were used in calculating the image congruence scores (Graeff, 1996). Ideal self-image was measured with the following question: “Describe yourself as you would ideally like to be. Think about how you would like to see yourself. What kind of person would you like to be? How would you like to be able to describe your personality? On the following scales, circle the number that best represents how you would ideally like to see yourself. (Graeff, 1996)”. Ideal social self-image was measured with the following question: “Describe yourself as you would ideally like to be seen by your social environment. …. circle the number that best represents how you would ideally like to be seen by your environment.”. for both questions, the same image dimensions as for the typical user image measure were used. All three scales turned out to be internally consistent. The consumer image (Cronbach’s alpha = .842), the ideal social image scale (Cronbach’s alpha =.847) and the ideal image scale
(Cronbach’s alpha =.884) all showed Cronbach alpha’s above .8. To measure the congruency levels of consumer image with ideal image and consumer image with ideal social image, an absolute difference score was created. This means that for every participant the absolute difference between consumer image and ideal or ideal social image was calculated.
Perceived healthiness of non-related product attributes
One construct will measure perceived evaluations of non-related product attributes. This was measured by three items, namely; ‘high in vitamins’, ‘high in proteins’ and ‘low in fat’. Participants had to answer on a 7-point-likert-scale ranging from completely disagree to completely agree. This measure proved to be internally consistent (Cronbach’s alpha = .712). This variable will be used as a proxy variable to draw conclusions for the health halo effect, as the difference in perceived healthiness of non-related product attributes for the health claim groups compared to the control group can be ascribed to the health halo.
4. Results
In this study, three conditions were created; a condition with a soy milk product naturally containing calcium (natural condition), an added calcium soy milk condition (added condition) and a control condition (where nothing was mentioned on calcium content). In this way, we manipulated firm intentionality in food alteration. My dependent variable was the perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes. Differences in this evaluation for the control group compared to the health claim groups can be ascribed to the health halo. In other words, the extent to which participants gave higher evaluations of other product attributes due to the presence of a health claim regarding one unrelated product attribute (calcium manipulation) compared to the no health claim condition, allows me to make judgments on the level of health halo.
Manipulation check Table 1
Descriptives for perceived calcium level per condition M SD N natural 5,5753 1,09186 73 added 5,9306 1,02540 72 control 4,3562 1,47545 73 Total 5,2844 1,38519 218 Table 2
One-way ANOVA for perceived level of calcium per condition
SS DF MS F Sig.
Error 317,228 215 1,475
Total 416,367 217
To see whether our manipulation functioned the way we had expected, we performed an ANOVA on the perceived level of calcium per condition. The data showed that there was a significant difference between the different conditions, F(2,215)= 33,595, p < 0.001 (see Table 2). To see where these differences originated from, we performed a Tukey Post Hoc Test. As shown in Table 1, the Tukey post hoc test told us that there was a significant difference between the control condition (M = 4.356, SD = 1,475) and the natural condition (M = 5,575, SD =1,092) and between the control condition (M = 4.356, SD = 1,475) and the added condition (M = 5,931, SD = 1,025). We did not find a significant difference between the natural and the added condition (p=.185). We can conclude that participants in the natural calcium claim condition (M=5.58) and added calcium claim condition (M = 5.93) perceived the product to have higher levels of calcium than participants in the no claim/control
condition (M = 4.36). Therefore, I can state that the manipulation was successfully
implemented and that the calcium health claim proved to be effective in comparison to the no (calcium) health claim condition.
Hypothesis 1
H1: We expected to see significant higher perceived healthiness of non-related product attributes in the natural and added condition compared to the control condition, thus we expect to see a health halo effect in the health claim conditions compared to the control condition.
In response to hypothesis 1, covariance (ANCOVA) was conducted, controlling for gender and age (see Table 3). By using the perceived evaluation of non-related product
compared to the no health claim group, health halo effect can be established. If significant differences can be found for this item per condition, with higher evaluations in the health claim conditions compared to the control conditions, these can be ascribed to the presence of a health claim. In other words; this difference is proof of a health halo due to the health claim.
Table 3
ANCOVA of perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes by condition
SS DF MS F Sig. η2 Condition 1,977 2 ,989 1,044 ,354 ,010 Age ,115 1 ,115 ,121 ,728 ,001 Gender ,079 1 ,079 ,084 ,772 ,000 Error 201,777 213 ,947 Total 4702,778 218 Corrected Total 203,878 217
Figure 1. mean perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes per condition
Figure 1. appears to show higher values of perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes in the health claim conditions (natural; M= 4,593, and added; M = 4,625) compared to the control condition (M = 4,409). However, the ANCOVA was not significant, F(2,213) = 1.044, p = .354 (see Table 3), so there was no significant difference in the perceived
evaluation of non-related product attributes per condition. This means that no evidence could be found for the occurrence of the health halo, as there is no difference in perceived
evaluation between the health claim conditions and no health claim condition. In conclusion, no evidence was found to support hypothesis 1.
Hypothesis 2
condition).
To test this hypothesis, an ANCOVA with perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes as the dependent variable is performed. For this study, a higher health halo effect, a substantial difference in perceived evaluation of other non-related product attributes of the product in added health claim condition compared to the control condition is expected in comparison to the health halo in the natural health claim condition, the difference in perceived evaluation of other product attributes in the natural condition compared to the control
condition.
Results from the ANCOVA (see Table 3) show us that no significant differences were found between the added calcium condition (M = 4.625) compared to the natural calcium condition (M = 4.593), meaning that there was no difference in perceived evaluation of the non-related product attributes for the soy milk in the added health claim compared to the natural health claim condition. The health claim in the added condition does not enhance the perceived evaluation on non-related product attributes to a larger extent than the natural health claim condition, meaning that there are no significant differences in perceived evaluations. The lack of support for significant differences between the natural health claim and no claim condition or the added health claim and no claim condition shows that there are no health halos found to be compared for the different health claim conditions. As such, no additional effect can be ascribed to an enhanced health halo effect hypothesized for the added calcium condition. Again, no conclusions on health halo can be drawn as there is no significant difference in the perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes per condition that can be ascribed to the health halo. Therefore, hypothesis 2 can be rejected.
Hypotheses 3
the health claim conditions (H3).
In response to hypothesis 3, an ANCOVA with perceived evaluation of non-related attributes is performed. A higher perceived evaluation for non-related product attributes is expected for products with a health claim compared to products without a health claim, and we expect this difference to be larger when there is image congruity between the product and the ideal or ideal social self.
Ideal image congruity Table 4
ANCOVA of perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes by condition, ideal image congruity and the interaction between condition and ideal image congruity
Source SS DF MS F Sig. η2
Condition 5,253 2 2,627 2,972 ,055 ,045
Age ,095 1 ,095 ,108 ,743 ,001
Gender ,117 1 ,117 ,132 ,717 ,001
Ideal image congruity 45,909 44 1,043 1,180 ,237 ,292
Condition * ideal image congruity 41,993 43 ,977 1,105 ,329 ,274
Error 111,378 126 ,884
Total 4702,778 218
Corrected Total 203,878 217
Note. Dependent variable: perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes
significantly influence the perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes, after controlling for gender and age (see Table 4). Moreover, ideal image congruity is not a moderator of perceived healthiness of unrelated product attributes. This does not test the effect of ideal image congruity on health halo, but simply the evaluation on other product attributes.
As no significant difference between health claim conditions and no health claim condition could be found, it was impossible to look at health halo effect. If differences would have been found due to moderating effects of ideal image congruity, and post hoc tests show that they result from health claim condition against control condition, this could be due to the health halo effect. However, no significant results were found. In this study, ideal image congruity does not affect the perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes, nor does it influence health halo.
Ideal social image congruity Table 5
ANCOVA of perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes by condition, ideal social image congruity and the interaction between condition and ideal social image congruity
SS DF MS F Sig. η2
Condition 2,880 2 1,440 1,534 ,219 ,018
Gender ,019 1 ,019 ,020 ,888 ,000
Age ,420 1 ,420 ,448 ,504 ,003
Ideal social image congruity 9,987 17 ,587 ,626 ,868 ,060 Condition * ideal social image congruity 31,582 29 1,089 1,160 ,276 ,168
Error 155,868 166 ,939
Corrected Total 203,582 216
Note. Dependent variable: perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes
The results from the ANCOVA (see Table 5) show that condition (p = .219), ideal social image congruity (p = .868) and the interaction between condition and ideal social image congruity (p = .276) do not significantly influence the perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes, after controlling for gender and age. Moreover, ideal social image
congruity is not a moderator of perceived evaluation of unrelated product attributes. This does not test the effect of ideal social image congruity on health halo, but simply on the evaluation on other product attributes. However, the results do show that no significant differences could be found in the natural health claim compared to no health claim and added health claim compared to no health claim, giving us reason to believe that there is no significant health halo. If differences would have been found due to moderating effects of ideal social image congruity, and post hoc tests show that they result from health claim condition against control condition, this could be due to the health halo effect. However, no significant results were found. In this study, ideal image congruity does not affect the perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes, nor does it influence health halo.
Hypothesis 4
H4: Expected is that consumers with a higher functional congruity between the claimed attribute and the attributes they value, show higher estimates of other non-related product attributes and a higher health halo.
To further analyze the ability of functional congruity to moderate perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes, an ANCOVA with perceived evaluation of the non-related product attributes as the dependent variable was performed. Covariates gender and age were
added to the test. The ANCOVA does not test the effect of functional congruity on health halo, but simply the influence of functional congruity on the evaluation of other product attributes.
Table 6
ANCOVA of perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes by condition, functional congruity and the interaction between condition and functional congruity
SS DF MS F Sig. η2
Condition 1,430 2 ,715 ,763 ,468 ,008
Gender ,215 1 ,215 ,230 ,632 ,001
Age ,000 1 ,000 ,000 ,984 ,000
Functional congruity 8,929 6 1,488 1,588 ,152 ,046
Condition * functional congruity 9,714 10 ,971 1,036 ,414 ,050
Error 184,656 197 ,937
Total 4702,778 218
Corrected Total 203,878 217
Note. Dependent variable: perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes
The results from the ANCOVA show that condition (p = .468), functional congruity (p = .152) and the interaction between condition and functional congruity (p = .414) do not significantly influence the perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes (see Table 6). Therefore, functional congruity is not a moderator of perceived healthiness of unrelated product
attributes. As the differences between health claim conditions and no health claim condition are not significant, there are no health halos that can be compared. Thus, higher levels of functional congruity do not moderate health halo in this study.
Hypotheses 5 and 6
H5: Hypothesized is that higher levels of health consciousness of the consumer result in higher levels of perceived evaluation of non-related attributes and higher health halo. H6: However, it could be that consumers with high health consciousness have more
knowledge regarding the claim, which results in less unwarranted healthy inferences (=lower health halo) as they know the claimed attribute is irrelevant to judgment of the other product attributes (H6).
To test these competing hypotheses, an ANCOVA was performed. The dependent variable is the perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes. Health consciousness is measured by GHI, the general health interest. Also, covariates gender and age were added to the test.
Table 7
ANCOVA of perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes by condition, health consciousness and the interaction between condition and health consciousness
SS DF MS F Sig. η2 Condition ,019 2 ,009 ,010 ,990 ,000 Gender ,965 1 ,965 ,980 ,324 ,008 Age ,613 1 ,613 ,622 ,432 ,005 GHI 58,611 44 1,332 1,352 ,102 ,335 Condition * GHI 27,024 51 ,530 ,538 ,993 ,189 Error 116,258 118 ,985 Total 4702,778 218 Corrected Total 203,878 217
The results from the ANCOVA show that condition (p = .990), health consciousness (p = .102) and the interaction between condition and health consciousness (p = .993) do not significantly influence the perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes (see Table 7). This means that neither health consciousness nor the interaction between condition and health
consciousness influence the perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes. As there are no significant differences in perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes per condition, no health halos could be discovered. In conclusion, we can reject hypothesis 5 and 6.
5. Discussion and conclusion
The goal of this study was to understand if and how ideal image congruity, functional
congruity, firm intentionality and health consciousness moderate health halo and whether the demographics age and gender affect these relationships.
The results show that the presence of a health claim on calcium proves to lead to higher perceived levels of calcium, but the wording of either an added calcium claim or a natural calcium claim proves to have no substantial impact. Additionally, there was no significant difference in the perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes per condition. This means that no evidence could be found for the presence of the health halo in the health claim conditions compared to the no claim condition. As such, Hypothesis 1 can be rejected.
An explanation for the absence of a health halo effect is possible familiarity of the product or prior product knowledge of the consumer (Rao & Monroe,1988). According to Rao and Monroe (1988) familiarity leads to better developed schemas about a product, which
schema resulting in the use of these evaluative criteria for product assessments. Rao and Monroe (1988) also mention that when familiarity increases, consumers are more
knowledgeable about a greater number of attributes of the product. It is possible that in this study, consumers are familiar with soy milk products and use schemas to fill in the estimates for the non-related product attributes instead of relying on health halo. This could explain the equal perceived evaluations of non-related product attributes in the health claim and in the no claim condition. An alternative explanation could be that other factors besides health claim could elicit health halos. Schuldt (2013) discovers an association between the green color and healthy, that is capable of influencing health-related judgments independent of the objective nutrition information conveyed by the label or health claim. The colors of the product package, similar in all three conditions, might be capable of influencing health-related judgments independent of the objective nutrition information or even independent of no nutrition information. The colors of the product package might elicit a health halo irrespective of the health claim.
Moreover, the results showed no significant difference in perceived evaluation of the non-related product attributes for the soy milk in the added health claim compared to the natural health claim condition. The lack of support for significant differences between the natural health claim and no claim condition or the added health claim and no claim condition shows that there are no health halos found for the different health claim conditions to compare. As such, no additional effect can be ascribed to an enhanced health halo effect hypothesized for the added calcium condition and hypothesis 2 can be rejected. In conclusion, the
moderator firm intentionality proved not to be significant in relation to health halo in the context of this study.
One possible explanation for the rejection of hypothesis 2, is that consumers don’t pay attention to a claim in so much detail as level of wording. According to Lähteenmäki, Lampila,
Grunert, Boztug, Ueland, Åström and Martinsdóttir (2010) the phrasing of the claim may not be the most central for consumer perception of the product, whereas established connections between the benefit and ingredient in consumers’ mind are highly important. So in this study, it is plausible that a small difference in wording does not lead to a substantial larger health halo effect. The ingredient and benefit mentioned in the natural and the added condition are the same. If the established connection with the benefit and ingredient is more important than wording of the claim (Lähteenmäki et al., 2010), it could explain the inability to find a higher health halo in the added health claim condition compared to the natural health claim condition in this study. Alternatively, consumers might see the natural calcium claim and the added calcium claim differently in a real life setting, where both products are closely near or next to each other at point of sale. In this study, participants are randomly assigned to one out of three conditions, meaning that they do not see the product in comparison to the other conditions. Whereas in real life consumers have all choices, added ingredient claims as well as natural ingredient claims, in front of them. The findings from Visschers, and Siegrist (2009) are consistent with the evaluability principle; people may perceive the nutritional value of a product more in line with its actual value when they are able to evaluate this in relation to reference values, such as the product category's nutritional value. It would be interesting to test the effect of firm intentionality, thus enhanced attribute health claims compared to natural attribute health claims, in a real life setting. In a real life setting, these products can be
evaluated in relation to reference values or in relation to one another.
Hypothesis 3 stated the expectation that ideal image and ideal social image congruity moderate the perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes and health halo, with higher values of perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes and health halo for ideal (social) image congruity. However, the results indicate that ideal image congruity and ideal social image congruity do not affect the perceived evaluation of non-related product
attributes, nor do these items moderate health halo. Consequently, hypothesis 3 was rejected. A possible explanation could be the influence of task involvement level. Different levels of involvement might elicit different ways of processing. Research by Sirgy, Grewal, and Mangleburg (2000) suggests that consumers' level of involvement affects information
processing, with high product involvement leading to greater effects of argument quality and low product involvement leading to greater effects of more holistic and simplistic criteria such as self-congruity. It could be argued that product involvement was high, as people were processing the survey, leading to greater effects of argument quality instead of self-congruity. Hypothesis 4, the expectation that consumers with a higher functional congruity between the claimed attribute and the attributes they value, show higher estimates of other non-related product attributes and if so, this difference can be assigned to health halo. The results show that functional congruity is not a moderator of perceived healthiness of unrelated product attributes. As the differences in functional congruity between health claim conditions and no health claim condition are not significantly, there are no health halos that can be compared. Thus, higher levels of functional congruity do not moderate health halo in this study. A possible explanation could be the schema congruity theory, which suggests that a certain degree of incongruity between the type of advertising claim and the nature of the product is desirable (Kim, Cheong & Zheng, 2009). Advertising claims that are incongruent with the typical product category schema are more persuasive than a claim matching the product schema. This could mean that for lower level’s of congruity between the claimed attribute and the demand of the consumer, the persuasiveness of the claim could be much higher than in conditions with high functional congruity. As long as extreme incongruity between the product and the advertised claim can be avoided (Kim, Cheong & Zheng, 2009), moderate level’s of congruity might result in higher health halo effects.
that higher levels of health consciousness of the consumer result in larger health halos. In contradiction, hypothesis 6 stated that consumers with high health consciousness have more knowledge regarding the claim, which results in less unwarranted healthy inferences and subsequently in lower health halo. However, the results show that neither health
consciousness nor the interaction between condition and health consciousness influence the perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes. As there are no significant differences in perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes per condition, no health halos could be determined or compared. A possible explanation for these results com from the fact that all conditions have the word ‘soy’ on the product package. A study by Wansink, Park, Sonka and Morganosky (2000) show that putting “soy” on a package negatively influenced taste
conscious consumers, but that it improved attitudes among consumers who are health conscious. The presence of ‘soy’ on the products in this study could possibly improve perceived evaluation of non-related product attributes of the health conscious consumers for all conditions, covering possible effects of health consciousness on the health halo due to the health claim.
A possible limitation of my study is the online survey design. It would be interesting to test the effect of firm intentionality in a real life setting, so these products can be evaluated in relation to reference values or in relation to one another. Another limitation is that in this study consumers might be familiar with soy milk products and this could have had serious effects on the results. Future research may fruitfully study the effect of product familiarity or prior product knowledge of the consumer on health halo. Another interesting step for future research, is the capability of colors to influence health related judgments without a health claim. Lastly, the presence of ‘soy’ on the products in this study could possibly have had an effect on health halo regardless of health claim as well.
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