Anna Fenko, Iris Nicolaas, Mirjam Galetzka
Visual attention to health labels can indicate a subsequent healthy food choice. This study looked into the relative effects of Choices logos and traffic light labels on consumers’ visual attention and food choice. A field experiment using mobile eye-tracking was conducted in a Dutch university canteen. Participants (N=48) walked to the shopping area wearing an eye-tracking device and chose one pack of yoghurt out of 12 from the refrigerated shelf. The packages varied in health label format (traffic light label, the Choices or no logo), fat content (low-fat, semi-fat and full fat), and brand. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions: with or without time constraint. The results revealed that participants fixated longer and more often on the traffic light labels compared to the Choices logos. Participants in the time constraint condition demonstrated less visual attention to health labels compared to participants without time constraint. General Health Interest (GHI) moderated the effect of time constraints. The condition without time constraints increased attention to health labels for participants with high GHI, but not for participants with low GHI. However, visual attention to health labels was a poor predictor of the subsequent healthy choice. The results suggest that attention to health labels might indicate the interest towards an unfamiliar food label, but it does not necessarily indicate a healthier food choice.
Food Quality and Preference, Volume 69, October 2018, Pages 57-65
Method
Forty-eight participants (26 females, aged from 18 to 63 years, mean age 31) took part in the experiment. Each participant was invited to a university canteen. For half of the participants the high time constraints condition was created by saying the following phrase: “You need to hurry up a little bit, because there are other participants waiting already”. All participants were asked to walk to the food area while wearing mobile eye-tracking device and to choose one package of yoghurt of their choice from the refrigerated shelf.
Twelve packages of yoghurt were presented to participants. Four of the yoghurts were low-fat (the healthiest option), four were semi-fat (the less healthy option) and four were full-fat (the unhealthy option). Four products contained traffic light labels, four contained the Choices logos and four had no health logos.
After completing this task, participants filled out the questionnaire about their General Health Interest, familiarity with the labels, and demographic characteristics.
Results
Participants fixated significantly more often and significantly longer on the traffic light labels compared to the Choices logos.
The results showed significant effects of time constraints on visual attention for both labels. The number and duration of fixations on traffic light labels and the Choices logos without time constraints was higher than under time constraints.
The results also revealed significant interaction effect of General Health Interest and time constraints on visual attention to health labels. For participants with low GHI, time constraints did not change the attention to the labels, while for participants with high GHI, low time constraints significantly increased the attention to health labels.
Familiarity with the traffic light label was lower than familiarity with the Choices logo. However, the attention to the traffic light label was significantly higher than to the Choices logo.
Participants looked significantly longer and more often at the traffic light labels compared to the Choices logos. However, they have chosen approximately the same number of products with the traffic light (N=21) and the Choices logo (N=18).
Conclusions
This study investigated visual attention towards traffic light labels and the Choices logos in the realistic environment of a university canteen. The results demonstrated that traffic light labels attract more consumer attention in terms of the number of fixations and fixation duration than the Choices logos. Attention to both labels was significantly disrupted by time constraints. Furthermore, consumers’ General Health Interest moderated the effect of time constraints on visual attention. In the situation without time constraints visual attention to health labels increased only for participants with high General Health Interest, but not for participants with low General Health Interest. This result suggests that both time resources and motivation in terms of General Health Interest and are necessary for consumers to pay attention to health labels. However, the study did not find direct evidence of the influence of visual attention towards health labels on healthy food choice. Further research is needed to find out how the health labels are processed in a real shopping situation and whether visual attention to other packaging elements may predict product choice.
Food Quality and Preference, Volume 69, October 2018, Pages 57-65
Multisensory marketing & design 