Tailoring the content strategies of food advertisements to healthy food: an empirical exploration

This study investigates how the healthiness of food products moderates the direct and indirect effects of advertising content strategies on sales through changes in price and in-store promotion elasticities. A content analysis of television food advertisements was conducted to identify advertising strategies, and Hierarchical Linear Modeling was used to examine their effects on corresponding retail sales data. The findings indicate that the effectiveness of advertising content varies significantly between healthy and unhealthy food categories. For healthy food products, emphasizing mouthfeel attributes and social affiliation benefits increases sales while reducing price sensitivity. Highlighting convenience in healthy products decreases price sensitivity but increases sensitivity to in-store promotions. For unhealthy products, convenience-focused advertising generally increases sales and lowers price sensitivity. In contrast, advertising product ingredients and innovativeness tends to increase price sensitivity while reducing responsiveness to promotions. This research advances the literature by examining a broad range of advertising strategies across healthy and unhealthy food categories, exploring their interactions with other marketing tactics, and utilizing actual retail sales data. The findings provide important insights into how advertising content can be tailored to enhance sales performance and support the consumption of healthier food products through both direct and indirect marketing effects.