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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
Numerous people’s dietary decisions are influenced by commercial and marketing motiva-
tions. Advertising and marketing tactics are in fact intended to pique consumer attention
and influence their purchasing decisions. Yong people are known to be particularly vulner-
able [1], and it is of interest to identify some other characteristics that may differentiate
most vulnerable consumers. In this study, based in a sample of size 11919, collected as part
of the project EATMOT [3], marketing motivations in food choices are analyzed through
seven items. Factor analysis was applied by country, looking for a factor structure common
to all countries. Three items were consistently combined in one factor. The other items
were studied individually. Five variables were, then, considered to measure marketing mo-
tivations in consumer’s food choices and used in a cluster analysis. Ward’s method, single
linkage, and average linkage were three hierarchical techniques that were used; their results
were considered as initial solutions for the k-means method. To find an optimal number of
clusters, k-means method was applied to 50 bootstrap samples and the similarity of cluster
solutions for different numbers of clusters was examined using the rand index [2]. The two
cluster solution emerged as an optimal solution, distinguishing consumers more prone to
the influence of marketing (Figure 1).
Then, using statistical tests and logistic regression analysis, these two clusters were com-
pared. For example, consumers of the Notably Motivated cluster were significantly younger
(32.7 vs 36.7 years old, p < 0.005), as expected, and this cluster also had a higher per-
centage of women (72.2% vs. 70.2%, p=0.016), a higher percentage of single individuals
(51.9% vs. 37.9%, p < 0.005), a lower proportion of individuals with university education (58.3% vs. 66.1%, p < 0.005), more consumers living in rural or suburban areas (37.2%
vs. 27.6%, p < 0.005), and more consumers without an active professional activity, that is,
unemployed, non-working students or retired (43.1% vs.31.1%, p < 0.005). Furthermore,
higher BMI and less physical exercise revealed to be associated with a greater chance of
belonging to the notably motivated group (p < 0.005). We thus obtained evidence that the
propensity for higher levels of commercial and marketing motivations is associated with
socio-demographic, anthropometric, behavioural and health related characteristics of the
consumer.
Description
Keywords
Cluster analysis logistic regression marketing motivations food choices
Citation
Henrriques C, Guiné RPF, Matos A, Malva M. (2023) Identifying characteristics of marketing-influenced eating vulnerability. In Book of Abstracts das XXX Jornadas de Classificação e Análise de Dados - JOCLAD 2023, Viana do Castelo, pp 79-80.