A Spoonful of Salt Helps the Vegetables Go Down: Exploring the Processing of Health and Nutrition-related Claims in Advertising

In light of recent persuasive appeals which promote a food product's health or nutritional benefits in advertisements, this exploratory study investigates the ways in which individuals read and understand health and nutrition-related claims in advertising and make subsequent judgments about the product, brand, and purchase intentions. Using the Elaboration-Likelihood model of persuasion, this study looks at how motivational (e.g., health consciousness, need for cognition) and ability (nutrition knowledge) factors influence attitudes toward three food products following exposure to manipulated advertisements containing a nutrition-related claim. Although the results do not demonstrate much support for the predicted relationships, the findings nonetheless provide researchers useful information that may benefit future studies.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Communication Studies

Department dc:contributor.department

Communication Studies

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2011

Author dc:creator

• Tice, Meghan A.

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Tedesco, John C.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Chen, Yi-Chun Yvonnes
• Magee, Robert G.

• nutrition knowledge
• health consciousness
• food advertising
• ingredient content claim
• health and nutrition-related claims
• Elaboration-Likelihood Model
• need for cognition

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

etd-05122011-113318

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/32671