Mr. Potato Head fights food waste: The effect of anthropomorphism in promoting ugly food

Abstract

• Anthropomorphism and message framing effects in promoting ugly food was investigated. • Anthropomorphism can boost consumers’ purchase intention toward ugly food. • Gain messages framed in distant future lead to greater ugly food purchase intention. • Loss messages framed in near future lead to greater ugly food purchase intention. • The matching effect (temporal distance & gain/loss) varies by anthropomorphism levels. Ugly food refers to vegetables and fruits that are oddly shaped, colored, or sized. Ugly food is typically thrown out, which represents a significant amount of food waste. This study aimed to identify effective ways to promote ugly food consumption by analyzing the relative persuasiveness of advertisements in terms of three variables: anthropomorphism (anthropomorphic vs. non-anthropomorphic), temporal framing (near future vs. distant future), and message framing (loss vs. gain). The results showed that anthropomorphism and distant future messages have a significant positive influence on consumers’ purchase intentions toward ugly food. This finding confirms that there is a significant matching effect between temporal distance and loss-/gain-framed messages on consumers’ purchase intentions toward ugly food. Additionally, this matching effect between temporal distance and loss-/gain-framed messages varies depending on the level of anthropomorphism present in the messages. The study also provides implications for effective marketing communication in the context of ugly food promotion in the foodservice industry.