How to best promote my product? Comparing the effectiveness of sensory, functional and symbolic advertising content in food marketing

Purpose: Advertising is one of the most important components of food marketing. However, there is uncertainty over the optimal means of convincing consumers to buy a product. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of advertising content comprising text (sensory, functional and symbolic messages) and pictures (product image) on food product evaluation. Design/methodology/approach: Two online experiments investigating strawberry advertisements were performed. Study 1 incorporated only text, whereas study 2 investigated combinations of text and pictures. Analyses of variance were conducted to determine any significant differences among the three texts (sensory, functional and symbolic) and among the combinations of text and pictures. Findings: Study 1 revealed no significant differences. All three texts were well received, which shows the relevance of all the product benefits – sensory, functional and symbolic – for food products. In contrast, study 2 identified significant differences. The data analysis indicated that advertising effectiveness increases with the complementarity of the text and picture. Notably, the combination of the product picture and symbolic text was scored the highest for effectiveness. Originality/value: The findings provide new insights into advertising design that food firms can use to enhance consumer product evaluations in terms of expected taste, perceived experience and quality, overall attitude and purchase intention. Further, the results contribute to the research stream of food product benefits by highlighting the relevance of sensory, functional and symbolic design elements.