How do consumer perceptions of “local” production benefits influence their visual attention to state marketing programs?

With increasing market potential due to consumer interest in locally sourced foods, state marketing promotional campaigns are becoming increasingly popular. We quantify consumers’ perceptions of local production benefits and assess the impact of Florida's state agricultural promotional campaign on consumer preferences for and visual attention to fruit‐producing plants. A rating‐based experiment and eye tracking measures were integrated to investigate the relationship between consumers’ perceived benefits of local production, purchase likelihood, and visual attention. Local economy benefits were perceived as the most beneficial (compared to environmental or product quality benefits) with participants’ demographics influencing their perceptions of those benefits. Visual attention to the agricultural promotional campaign logo increased consumers’ purchase likelihood if they perceived locally grown plants as benefiting the local economy. The local production attribute had a positive impact even though consumers who became familiar with the visual stimulus (after repetitive exposures) spent relatively less time visually attending to the campaign logo. [EconLit citations: M3].