Effective Social Marketing to Improve Parental Intentions Giving More Fruits and Vegetables to Children

Abstract

There is a need to monitor the growing prevalence of childhood weight issues and obesity worldwide. Parents can establish a set of family rules regarding child behaviors, but parents’ favorable attitudes toward healthy nutrition are also necessary. Despite the importance of this issue, there has been very little research on the most efficient means of communication to improve parental intentions to give fruits and vegetables to their children. Social marketing plays a key role in formulating effective communication campaigns targeting parents. We focus on two elements of the communication process, the message endorser and the message framing, and run an experiment with a sample of parents. Results demonstrate that parental intention to provide fruits and vegetables to children will be higher when the related message is backed by an expert endorser (vs. a celebrity endorser), the message is positively framed (vs. negatively framed) and when the message is emotionally framed (vs. rationally framed). Moreover, there is an interaction effect between the influence of the expertise/celebrity characteristic of the endorser and the message framing on parental intention to provide fruits and vegetables, and the effect is higher when the rational message framing is endorsed by an expert.