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This paper aims to examine the effect of proximal (versus distant) depiction of food products within an advertising or online context on consumer responses across food types (indulgent versus non-indulgent) and display formats that lead to a single exposure (e.g. billboard) versus multiple exposures (e.g. online menu).

Five experimental studies, using both implicit and explicit elicitation techniques, demonstrate the effect of proximal food depictions. The paper rules out alternative explanations (portion-size perception and participants’ bodily distance) and controls for several other factors (e.g. visual crowding, body-mass index, dietary restrictions, etc.)

The studies find that proximal food pictures are implicitly associated with tastiness more for indulgent (vs non-indulgent) foods; lead to higher purchase intention for indulgent food upon a single exposure driven by enhanced perceived tastiness; and evoke satiation upon multiple exposures.

This research identifies the effect of spatial proximity of food depiction on consumer responses using different stimuli. Future work could explore the effects in alternate consummatory contexts.

The findings provide clear instructions to marketers and policymakers on how to tailor consumer responses using spatial distance in depiction of food products, depending on the food type and display format. Understanding the effect of visual food cues will help policymakers devise strategies to counter over-consumption, which increases the risk of non-communicable diseases and reduces consumer well-being (SDG 3, United Nations).

Introducing a novel pictorial cue (i.e. the spatial distance of product depiction), this paper contributes insights to the literature on implicit associations, visual information processing, satiation, over-consumption and food marketing.

Building upon humans’ trichromatic vision systems, dual-process theory and halo effects, this paper aims to examine the effects of red and green color brightness of food pictures on customers’ evaluations and purchase intention of restaurant food.

The proposed hypotheses were tested across three experimental designed studies on a total of 575 participants. Multilevel analysis, analysis of variance and multivariate analysis of variance were applied for data analysis.

This paper provides empirical evidence of the effects of red brightness and green brightness on customers’ affective and cognitive evaluation of food and purchase intention in Study 1. Study 2 validates the effects of red and green brightness on food evaluation with the presence of nutrition information. Study 3 further elaborates on the halo effects of color brightness on customers’ favorable intentions to patronize a restaurant and willingness to pay for a meal in a controlled lab experiment.

One main limitation is that this paper focuses on unveiling the role of color brightness and does not consider other picture properties, which opens an avenue for future research.

This paper includes implications for food promotion and management of customers’ experience via food pictures.

This paper is one of the first attempts to reveal the effects of red and green brightness of food pictures on customers’ food evaluation and food consumption behavioral intentions.

This study aims to explore how certain consumer characteristics (dieting status, health motives and food values) together with products carrying ambivalent health and taste cues (light foods, convenience foods, “functional candies”) shape whether and why health and taste attributes are perceived as inclusive (“healthy is tasty” and “unhealthy is untasty”) or exclusive (“healthy is untasty” and “unhealthy is tasty”).

A qualitative methodology not yet applied in examining consumers’ healthiness and tastiness perceptions of food was employed. It included gathering three separate data sets through both personal and group interviews (N = 40).

Consumers’ dieting status, health motives and food values shape the perception of inclusivity and exclusivity of health and taste of light, convenience and candy products. Second, there are multiple sources for these perceptions including product type, ingredients, level of processing and marketing cues. These factors interact to produce a unique consumer understanding of the relationship between health and taste for each single food product.

To ensure optimal consumer response, food companies and health educators need to understand how different target groups form their inclusive/exclusive perceptions of health and taste for various foods.

The majority of pre-existing food consumption research supports imply that a good taste and a high degree of healthiness are incompatible with each other. The findings challenge this view. It appears that it is the “unhealthy is untasty” and “healthy is tasty” perceptions that predominate in certain consumer groups. A novel conceptual framework for understanding the ambivalence of health and taste perceptions in food consumption is offered.

Individuals, organizations, firms, and governments have been making strenuous effort to promote sustainable and green consumption. However, it is noticeable that a large amount of unattractive produce is ruthlessly discarded and wasted around the globe, resulting in unsustainable consumption behavior, harming long-term business development, and breaking the harmonious relationship between humans and nature. Therefore, to increase consumer literacy toward unaesthetic produce, this research investigates the pivotal role of “natural” labeling in increasing purchase intention toward visually unattractive fruits and vegetables.

By recruiting participants from one of the largest online crowdsourcing platforms (the Credamo), this research conducts three online experimental studies (with two pilot studies) to test three hypotheses based on the cue utilization theory and the lay belief theory.

The results show that unattractive produce with the “natural” label could significantly increase consumers' purchase intention compared with those without specific labels. The results also reveal that consumers' lay beliefs that natural foods are perceived to be tastier and healthier mediate the positive effects of “natural” labeling (vs no specific labeling) on willingness to purchase.

This research explores competing lay beliefs about unattractive produce. It identifies the positive effects of lay beliefs “natural = tasty and healthy” through “natural” labeling appeal, thus attenuating the misapplication of lay beliefs “unattractive = tasteless and unhealthy” and broadening the application scope of consumer lay belief theory. The findings also contribute to the cue literature by manifesting the positive consequences of the “natural” label playing as a cognitive cue in priming lay beliefs about naturalness. In addition, it also paves a positive way for business practitioners and marketers to develop the produce industry sustainably.

The purpose of this study is to provide a nuanced understanding of the marketing placebo effect (MPE) of products with reduced sugar labeling and how it forms certain perceptual underpins (perceived healthiness (PH) and perceived tastiness (PT)), with the potential effect of product category and social class in consideration.

The proposed model is tested using a sample of 822 participants by employing partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Hypothetical relationships among MPE, PH, PT, purchase intention (PI) and social class are examined for both hedonic and utilitarian products.

The results highlight the positive role of MPE in leveraging consumer PI through the parallel mediation of PH and PT. The positive effect of MPE on PH and PT was more pronounced for the utilitarian product. In addition, social class negatively moderated the relationship between PH and PI only in the case of the utilitarian product.

This paper contributed to the MPE literature in the food industry by challenging the conventional intuition of “Unhealthy = Tasty” and highlighting the potential of perceived food healthiness to positively influence perceived food tastiness under the effect of MPE. An upper social class would attenuate the positive effect of perceived food healthiness on PI.

This paper aims to offer social marketers an innovative method to promote healthy foods. This method demonstrates the effectiveness of indirect communication in attracting consumers to healthy foods. Further, it aims to offer a way to promote food as healthier with no detrimental effects on its perceived appeal, which are a likely side effect of advertising food as healthy.

Four between-participant lab studies (N = 50, 80, 80, 102) included manipulations of food motion vs stillness and then compared ratings of food freshness, healthiness and appeal using self-report measures.

Motion increases healthiness evaluation. This increase in healthiness evaluation occurs without reductions in food appeal. These effects are mediated by evaluations of freshness. This occurred across three different food types and two mediums (still images and digital videos).

The paper provides an effective tool for social marketers wishing to encourage healthier eating. Specifically, it helps address two problems: low effectiveness of prevalent, information-based appeals to encourage healthy eating; and reduced evaluations of tastiness that normally occur when consumers are convinced food is healthy.

Social marketers can use motion as an effective tool to promote food as healthy. Importantly, this indirect communication avoids the potential pitfall of reduced food appeal. This should help encourage healthier eating. The findings also supports the use of indirect cues as an effective approach to promoting social ends.

Offering a novel, indirect method of enhancing judgments of food healthiness via a simple visual cue. Demonstrating the effect and its underlying mechanism. Providing a way to counter the prevalent “unhealthy = tasty” intuition, a major obstacle to promoting healthy eating. Supporting social marketers’ use of indirect communication to increase the appeal of desirable societal goals. Finally, showing that sensory visual cues can serve as a source of heuristic thinking.

Outdoor signage, a key aspect of store atmospherics which influence consumer perceptions and behaviour, is largely overlooked in research on restaurants. Studies show that food perceptions relate positively to restaurant choice, but how outdoor signage influences these perceptions is unclear. Hence, the study aims to investigate the effect of signage colour and restaurant name on consumers' attitudes and purchase intentions.

This study uses a two (signage colour: blue-white vs. red-yellow) by two (restaurant name: typical vs. atypical) experimental design to investigate the impact of two key elements of corporate visual identity – logo colour and corporate name – on consumers’ attitudes (perceptions of food tastiness and healthiness) and purchase intentions. Two-way analysis of covariance, confirmatory factor analysis and PROCESS are used for data analysis.

There is a main effect of signage colour on consumers’ perceptions of food healthiness and purchase intentions, and restaurant name significantly affects consumers’ purchase intentions. In addition, there is an interaction effect of signage colour and restaurant name on food healthiness and purchase intentions, and food tastiness and healthiness are associated with purchase intentions.

A key managerial insight emerging from this study is that restaurants’ outdoor signage may be manipulated by restaurateurs to enhance consumers’ perceptions of food healthiness and tastiness, as well purchase intentions.

This study adopts a new angle on corporate visual identity and links existing theories with research on restaurant atmospherics, to explore how brands employing national identity symbols leverages consumers’ prior knowledge to enhance the influence of outdoor signage on their food perceptions and purchase intentions.

The palm oil debate has become highly polarised in recent years and is of crucial importance for multinationals and their policies. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the consumers’ response towards product packs communicating this food ingredient in different ways: through “palm oil free” and “with sustainable palm oil” claims or without mentioning it.

A mail survey with a sample of 191 consumers was conducted. Respondents were equally and randomly distributed among the experimental conditions. The hypotheses were tested by a between-subjects factorial design.

Results revealed that consumer exposed to the “palm oil free” products showed a lower risk perception compared to those exposed to the “with sustainable palm oil” products and to products without claim. Moreover, the product evaluation was better in the “palm oil free” condition compared to the “with sustainable palm oil” condition. No differences emerged in attitude, expected tastiness and willingness to pay.

The study sheds light on the consumer valuation of palm oil products and provides some useful managerial implications to manufacturers and product managers.

Results enrich the literature on food claims on pre-packaged foods as the source of information and on consumers’ perception towards palm oil.

Aversion linked to disgust and neophobia is the primary reason for human reluctance towards edible insects as a sustainable food source. Stimulating positive emotions may overcome these mental barriers. Cute visuals and claims on product packaging can trigger positive affective responses in consumers whilst modulating taste expectations. This study investigated how these elements influence emotions, perceptions and attitudes towards insect-based foods.

An online cross-cultural study involving French (n = 747) and Colombian (n = 695) consumers was conducted using two insect-based products: chips (hedonic) and bread (functional). Ten visual packaging variations were created per product, emphasising palatability, sustainability, nutrition and popularity (plus a control: no claim) affixed to the image of a cute anthropomorphic cricket or its silhouette. Visual appreciation and associations were assessed along with the participants' degree of food variety seeking, familiarity with entomophagy and openness to consuming edible insects.

Differences were reported in emotions, perceptions and attitudes based on the combination of packaging elements, product type and consumer segments. The findings suggest that food marketers should use cute insect depictions linked to palatability-focussed claims to alleviate young French adults' reluctance towards insect-based foods (IFs). Colombians responded better to pro-social claims and neutrally to cuteness.

The results should be valuable to stakeholders seeking to enhance food marketing strategies related to IFs amongst target consumer segments.

This study is the first to assess how baby schema cuteness induces emotional changes towards IFs and how it affects perceptions and attitudes amongst distinct populations and age segments.