Research On The Influence Mechanism Of Perceived Health Goal Progress And Advertising Appeal On Consumers’ Responses

With the proposition of “Healthy China” strategy and the rise of healthy diet and national fitness,people are paying more and more attention to the pursuit of health.A variety of health products have also appeared in the market to help people achieve health goals.However,the health pursuit stages which people staute are different(low vs.high).Thus,people prefer the information of the advertising appeal that match their mental representation.Accordingly,under the condition of low(vs.high)level of perceived health goal progress,which advertising appeal of health products is more popular with consumers? In fact,there are two types of health product advertisements by observing marketing practices: process-focused and outcome-focused.Differently focused(process vs.outcome)advertising appeals,which make consumers produce different mental representations,would lead to different consumers’ responses.Therefore,we infer perceived health goal progress levels(low vs.high)and advertising appeals(process vs.outcome)might influence consumers’ responses.In addition,the regulatory fit theory points out that,the behavioral strategy that fit people’s goal pursuit orientation will make people have more motivation,then affect the individual’s behavioral decision-making and attitude.Since perceived health goal progress levels can lead consumers to have different goal pursuit orientations,would the advertising message strategy,that is “advertising appeal”,which matches the consumer goal pursuit orientation enhance the individual motivation to pursue the health goal,and then make consumers’ responses to health products? Thus,we propose that the health goal pursuit motivation may play a mediating role in the interactive effect between perceived health goal progress and advertising apeals on consumers’ responses.According to the above analysis,this thesis empirically investigated the above questions by two pre-studis and two main studies.The results showed that under the low level of perceived health goal progress,the process(vs.outcome)focused advertising apeal would be more favorable to promote consumers’ responses by more matching consumers’ concrete mental representations of “how” to achieve health goals;under the high level of perceived health goal progress,outcome(vs.process)focused advertising apeal would be more favorable to provoke consumers’ responses by more matching consumers’ abstract mental representations of achieving “what” health goals.Moreover,health goal pursuit motivation could play a mediating role in the interactive influence between perceived health goal progress and advertising apeals on consumers’ responses.Based on the perspective of the regulatory fit theory,this thesis makes significant theoretical contributions by revealing the interactive effcts between perceived health goal progress and advertising appeals on consumers’ responses and its potential mechanism.Meanwhile,this reserch can provide practical implications for enterprises how to launch precision marketing campaigns of healthy products,and for governments to nudge consumers’ healthy behaviors.The thesis has 7 figures,14 tables,and 242 references.