Unveiling the impact of visual and textual sugar content reinforcement: an empirical investigation on purchase intentions and soda consumption

Drawing on social marketing, nudging, and nutrition-labelling research, this paper examines how reinforcing sugar content through combined visual and textual cues influences consumer responses to sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs). Despite policy efforts, consumers often struggle to regulate sugar intake because nutritional information lacks salience. Across two experiments, we investigate the effects of on-pack sugar content reinforcement. A laboratory experiment (n = 114) shows that displaying both textual and pictorial representations of sugar content significantly reduces actual soda consumption. An online experiment (n = 710) demonstrates a similar effect on purchase intention through a sequential mediation process: sugar content reinforcement decreases perceived healthiness, which lowers perceived tastiness, ultimately reducing purchase intention. Theoretically, this research reconceptualizes the unhealthy = tasty intuition as a context-dependent inference shaped by salient information and highlights the role of dual-coding processes in enhancing cognitive accessibility. These findings provide actionable insights for promoting healthier consumption.