Social marketing is often used to guide and develop interventions designed to promote healthy eating. This study investigates the potential use of priming by social marketers to intervene in marketers’ promotional efforts (brand exposure) and enhance affective preference toward healthy products over unhealthy products. More specifically, we study whether (1) consumers’ need-for-cognition (NFC) and cognitive load moderate and whether (2) familiarity response time and familiarity mediate the effect of primes on affective preference. Our study shows the expected effect of primes on affective preference among high (low) NFC consumers under high (low) cognitive load. Among high NFC consumers under high cognitive load, the familiarity response time mediated the effect of primes on affective preference. We discuss theoretical and managerial implications as well as directions for future research.
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