Remember the motivationally-relevant appeals? The influence of social and sensory appeals on memory for pronutritional messages promoting healthy foods

Abstract

Unhealthy foods advertisements often use motivationally-relevant appeals – i.e., stimuli with survival benefits, linked to hedonic consumption or social eating contexts. These stimuli automatically attract mental resources, resulting in memorable advertisements that can influence consumers’ choices and well-being. Aiming to prevent obesity and encourage healthy lifestyles, we examined the usability of these appeals to promote healthy foods to young consumers. A mixed factorial experiment recorded memory in preteen children and teenagers who watched various depictions of social eating contexts and texts emphasizing hedonic versus utilitarian benefits. The free recall and recognition tests revealed that young people had better memory for food advertisements featuring social eating contexts. Depictions of large groups were remarkably lasting, contributing to 80% of the health messages being recognized and recalled. As hypothesized, these appeals were more effective for teenagers than preteen children. Motivationally-relevant social appeals make pronutritional media more memorable, influencing healthy choices in the long run.

Keywords:

• Pronutritional media messages
• motivationally-relevant appeals
• social appeals
• sensory appeals
• memory
• young consumers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lelia Samson

Lelia Samson (Ph.D., Indiana University Bloomington USA) is an Assistant Professor at Renmin University, China. Taking a media psychology perspective, her research examines how visual processing mechanisms explain patterns of advertising and health communication effects. Samson’s work focuses on the effects of visual motivationally-relevant cues in persuasive pronutritional messages targeting young consumers. It has been published in Media Psychology, Journal of Media Psychology, Communication Research, Journal of Communication, etc., and awarded by the International Communication Association, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, the International Academy of Sex Research and the Kinsey Institute.

Annemarie J. Nanne

Annemarie Nanne is a PhD student at the Tilburg Center for Cognition and Communication, and the centre is part of the School of Humanities and Digital Sciences at Tilburg University. She holds a master’s degree in Behavioural Science, obtained from Radboud University Nijmegen. Her PhD project focuses on the persuasive effects of visual brand-related User Generated Content.

Moniek Buijzen

Moniek Buijzen is Professor of Communication and Behavioral Change at the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Her work focuses on the young (media) consumer, within the paradigm of positive communication research. She strives to enrich and apply communication scientific knowledge to improve young people's well-being.