High involvement purchasing decisions are those which are more complex, typically involve higher priced products or involve products which are more prone to failure. Prototypical examples are that of fine tableware, or sports cars. Literature suggests that information other than price will be more heavily relied upon in such settings to determine demand. We explore the generalizability of this theory to a setting of food marketing, where individual tastes, prior product experience, and prices are each thought to determine demand. Using a small-scale RCT we vary the level of perceived product involvement for consumers and show that for a range of products with different characteristics - nutritional information (such as health endorsements) are more readily seen as a useful heuristic by consumers in high involvement scenarios, compared to in lower involvement scenarios. We demonstrate how product involvement determines when nutritional information will be most relied upon in purchasing decisions, and when it might instead be overlooked. [Andrew Montandon, Andrzej Ogonowski & Elsamari Botha. Journal of Food Products Marketing, 2016] [Link]
