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 product information will be more heavily relied upon in such settings. We explore the generalizability of this theory to a setting of food marketing, where individual tastes, prior product experience, or prices are thought to strongly 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 lower involvement scenarios. We demonstrate that basic product attributes such as product involvement remain strong predictors of product choices even in these commonplace settings. [Andrew Montandon, Andrzej Ogonowski & Elsamari Botha. Journal of Food Products Marketing, 2016] [Link]
