Processing Food Advertisements: Initial Biological Responses Matter

Abstract

Food is a primary biological motivator and elicits automatic approach and consumption responses. How directly food is portrayed may alter these responses and, as a result, influence how food ads, brands and products are evaluated. This paper presents two experiments that examine how the portrayal of food in food advertisements can alter its motivational appeal, and as such, alter dynamic appetitive responses and later evaluations. The ads in this study differed in how they were produced. Some ads initially portrayed food as very appetizing and ready-to-eat while others initially portrayed foods in their packaging and not ready-to-eat. In general, results support that unpackaged food is more directly appetitive, showing better physiological appetitive responses and better attitudinal evaluations overall.

Keywords:

• Food
• Motivation
• Dynamic Processing
• Biological Imperatives

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Annie Lang for her thoughts on this work and the Institute for Communication Research for supporting this research.