Sense of Power: Policy Insights for Encouraging Consumers’ Healthy Food Choice

Abstract

Research has inadequately examined how increasing a consumer’s sense of power may positively influence healthy choices. With the global obesity epidemic worsening each year, now is an essential time for marketers and policy makers to identify ways to encourage healthy choices. Thus, the current research addresses this need and the accompanying gap in the literature. Through five studies (including a field study) involving both corporate advertising and public service announcements, results show that priming a high (vs. low) sense of power leads consumers to make healthier food purchase decisions and that this effect occurs because a higher sense of power results in a more salient health goal. Most relevant for policy makers, the findings show that priming a high sense of power through simple changes in marketing communications (e.g., using the headline “You are powerful”) is an effective way to increase healthy choice, particularly for lower-socioeconomic-status consumers.