Fit or not? Bringing regulatory fit into the frame on health food preferences

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to facilitate the use of public communication in the development of healthy food plans for consumers. This research aims to investigate whether the influence of “fit” to individuals’ goal pursuit strategies on the effectiveness of advertisement frames can intensify persuasion to consume healthy (virtue) foods or restrain the consumption of unhealthy (vice) foods in health promotion. Design/methodology/approach: Two experiments were conducted to investigate how goal-framed messages for different food types affect consumer decision making by moderating regulatory focus. Findings: The results demonstrate that the compatibility between the mere exposure to virtue (vice) food in a negative (positive) frame drives the effectiveness of a given goal framing. However, when additional regulatory focus is added, the fit in the vice/promotion and virtue/prevention condition causes the effect of framing to disappear. Moreover, the unfit in the virtue/promotion and vice/prevention condition suppresses the virtue (vice) preference in the positive (negative) frame. Research limitations/implications: These findings suggest that under different valence framing, advertising messages provide different amounts of persuasion in virtue/vice conditions and the moderation effect of regulatory fit on framing to influence virtue/vice food preference. Practical implications: Public policy executives and marketers can increase the likelihood that consumers will make healthy food choices by fitting goals to strengthen persuasion. The unfitted goal orientation between food and regulatory focus enhances the framing effect leading to food preference changes. Originality/value: The framing effect disappears when additional regulatory fit the food type, but is enhanced when additional regulatory focus does not fit the food type. By bringing fit into the frame and the virtue/vice food type, this research extends the notion of regulatory fit into three pairs of given goal orientations on the persuasiveness of message framing to health-related communication. It provides a substantial explanation underlying persuasion to promote a greater understanding of virtue/vice food preferences.