Consumers’ perception of reduced calorie meals: How low is “Low-Calorie”?

ABSTRACT

With consumers becoming increasingly health conscious, the demand for reduced calorie food has significantly increased over the years. However, the definition of low-calorie food remains unclear. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate consumers’ perception of reduced calorie meals, from the perspective of the maximum calorie level that consumers would consider as “low-calorie.” Survey data were collected using MTurk. In addition to respondents’ perception of the calorie count of low-calorie food when eating out and eating at home, respondents’ attitude toward low-calorie food, behaviors about consuming low-calorie food and exercise frequency, and demographic information were also assessed in the survey. The results demonstrate that consumers’ calorie perception of low-calorie food served in restaurants is consistent among different types of restaurants. Moreover, consumers believe that a low-calorie meal served in restaurants should be under 367 calories for breakfast, 500 calories for lunch, and 677 calories for dinner. Lastly, consumers perceive home-cooked meals to be lower in calories than restaurant food. This study is the first attempt to explore consumers’ definition of a low-calorie meal served in restaurants. The findings will provide guidance to restaurant operators in designing menus, and help policymakers better understand the ongoing need to develop a sound and comprehensive definition for the term “low-calorie.”     

Marketing Benchmarks: Do You Trust Your Friendly Marketer?

With many products, consumers must make key decisions—the amount to use per application, the need to replace when worn out, or a reasonable amount to spend—and there are no clear answers to these questions. Consumers are unlikely to have the expertise or the motivation to find optimal answers. The term marketing benchmark is used for a marketer‐supplied indication of how much of a product to use, how often to replace it, or how much to spend on it. Even though consumers have reasons to be skeptical, a series of experiments indicate that advertised marketing benchmarks influence how much they believe they should use per application and how frequently they should replace products. Furthermore, skepticism toward advertising appears to provide only small protection against the influence of marketing benchmarks.