Increasing the Measurement Accuracy of Consumption Intentions

Behind the goal of many campaigns – public health or advertising – is that of altering the incidence, frequency, or volume of a behavior. This could involve reducing the incidence or frequency of smoking, reducing the volume of calorie intake, or increasing the incidence or volume of healthy produce or packaged goods. Unfortunately, many of the measures we have for foreshadowing the effectiveness of these campaigns. Since measuring actual consumption can be prohibitive in terms of time and money, we present two measures which can be examined in a laboratory – cognitive responses and consumption-intentions. Last we examine promising psychographic differences believed to moderate the effectiveness of various interventions on consumption. These can be useful in making measures more precise by focusing on subgroups on which they are most accurate