Does Advertising Content Matter? Impacts of Healthy Eating and Anti-Obesity Advertising on Willingness to Pay by Consumer Body Mass Index

Abstract

This study examines the impacts of two types of advertising content—healthy eating and anti-obesity advertising—on the demand for healthy and unhealthy food and beverage items. We show that differentiating consumers by weight is crucial in fully understanding the effects of advertising content on food and beverage demand. We find that among overweight individuals, anti-obesity advertisements are more effective than healthy eating advertisements at reducing the demand for unhealthy items and increasing the demand for healthy items. Furthermore, the magnitude of this effect increases with BMI. We discuss possible explanations and policy implications based on our results.