Marketing using health claims such as 'calcium is good for your bones' is not an uncommon sight. However, Singaporean consumers, like their Western counterparts, are becoming skeptical about such claims that appear on food packaging. Age and consumer's self-confidence in acquiring information, identification of product alternatives, and getting recognition from others about purchase decisions made, are important antecedents to Singaporeans' skepticism toward health claims.
What contributes to consumer skepticism about health claims, and what are the consequences of such skepticism? Here, Associate Professor Tan Soo Jiuan breaks it down for us.
In the European Union, health claims that are governed by the Health and Nutrition Claims Regulation was supposed to take effect in the autumn of 2006. This regulation will eventually contain a list of approved well-established health claims such as 'calcium is good for your bones', which manufacturers may place on product labels 'so long as they are proven to apply to the food in question.'
The regulation was timely as many food manufacturers in Europe are placing health claims in prominent places on product packaging to inform customers of the potential health benefits of their products. Despite the prevalent use of health claims in marketing, interviews conducted by FDA revealed that consumers are highly skeptical of health and nutrition claims on packages because they view claims as attempts by the manufacturer to sell more of their product.
If consumers generally do not believe health claims touted on product labels as reported, why are marketers still developing and communicating these claims on product packages? What is the nature of such skepticism? What contributes to consumer skepticism about health claims, and what are the consequences of such skepticism? Will extant skepticism concepts developed based on Western consumers be applicable to Asian consumers?
Examining Consumers' Personality and Experience
To answer the above questions, a framework adapted from Obermiller and Spangenberg's Skepticism toward Advertising1 was used. Personality Traits (cynicism and consumer self-confidence) and Consumption Experiences (age and education) were used as the two main antecedents to consumers' skepticism toward health claims.
As part of the adapted framework, Situational Factors (product type and claim type) as well as Individual Factors (knowledge/expertise on nutrition, and motivation/involvement to process nutrition knowledge) were also considered, as they were known to moderate the effects of skepticism on the use of health claims.
With the designed health claim skepticism framework in place, the study revealed that personality traits such as self-confidence (in information acquisition and processing, consideration set formation, social out-comes decision making, and persuasion knowledge) and consumption experience such as age contributed much towards molding a person's skepticism toward health claims.
Through the survey, it was discovered that Singaporean consumers, like their Western counterparts, are indeed skeptical about health claims on product labels. Personality trait in terms of consumer self-confidence, consumption experience in terms of age, and individual factor in terms of motivation to process nutrition information are found to be important antecedents to Singapore consumers' skepticism toward health claims.
This also means that Singaporean consumers who are high in skepticism will use less of the health claims and millions of dollars spent on product development and improvement, advertising, and packaging would be wasted!
How marketers can reach out to the skeptic
However on the other hand, if skepticism is high, marketers may then consider appropriate marketing communications to educate these consumers and convince them of the validity of the health claim. Companies can seek endorsement of their claim by independent and qualified parties to deal with consumer skepticism. For instance, Kellogg Company cited the Heart and Vascular Institute at the Henry Ford Hospital as the authority for their 'Heartwise' claim, and such endorsements acting very much like the seals of approval could be a potent marketing factor.
Alternatively, marketers could also consider revising the health claims and test out the acceptability of the revised health claim messages using the skepticism scale as a response instrument. Different types of health claims (specific versus general) with variations in wordings could then be pre-tested among targeted consumers, to find one which invited the lowest level of skepticism and hence one which has the most potential for acceptance by these consumers.
In conclusion, global marketers involved in food and health related products should seek to understand how consumers worldwide process nutrition and health-related information. With that, they will be able to design product information on packages that consumers could accept, process, and use in their purchase decisions.
Associate Professor Tan Soo Jiuan, is a lecturer in the Marketing Department at the NUS Business School. A full publication of the above report, 'Antecedents and Consequences of Skepticism toward Health Claims: An Empirical Investigation of Singaporean Consumers' may be found in the Journal of Marketing Communications, 13:1, 59 - 82.
1 Obermiller and Spangenberg, 1998, Journal of Consumer Psychology, 7(2), 189 - 186.
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