Targeted Marketing

Understanding religiosity’s influence on food choices can assist in targeted marketing

by David Bitton

If you’re especially religious, chances are you’re more likely to buy fat-free, sugar-free or gluten-free foods while less religious people may prefer organic or natural foods.

Those are the findings researchers from Oklahoma State University, Arizona State University and the University of Wyoming came up with after testing the theory that religious and moral beliefs have a direct correlation to food purchasing choices, which could impact how food products are marketed.

While it is well understood that behavior is guided by a consumer’s beliefs and values, co-authors of this study argue that religiosity — how religious someone is — and moral priorities are important and often overlooked predictors of special food preferences.

“Everyone lives by a belief system, whether they are religious or not,” said Dr. Elizabeth Minton, associate professor of marketing in University of Wyoming’s College of Business and lead author of an article on this topic published in the Journal of Business Research. “Religion is the deepest set of core values people can have, and we wanted to explore how those values impacted the market choices people make.”

Researchers collected responses from more than 1,700 people through four online surveys while testing the theory that religious and moral beliefs play a role in specialty food choices.

Their hypothesis that highly religious consumers would prefer diet-minded foods (fat-free, sugarfree or gluten-free) proved true while less religious individuals preferred sustainably minded (natural or organic) foods.

“What is interesting is that we confirmed highly religious people really like special diet foods,” said Dr. Richie Liu, assistant professor in the School of Marketing and International Business at Oklahoma State University and co-author of the paper. “This is explained by the perception that dietminded foods are more pure.”

Religious texts also play a role.

Researchers noted that scripture encourages fasting, identifies gluttony as a sin and encourages people to think of the body as a temple that should be kept pure.

“Diet-minded food consumption is especially supported by familiarity with religious dietary restrictions focused on food avoidance and food preparation, whereas sustainably minded food consumption is especially supported by concerns about the environment and focuses on food production processes,” the researchers wrote.

To better understand moral impacts on food preference among highly and less religious individuals, researchers looked at the moral foundations of “purity” and “care” as predictors of diet-minded and sustainably minded food preferences.

“People have different moral intuitions, or moral foundations,” said Dr. Kathryn Johnson, assistant research professor of psychology at Arizona State University and co-author of the paper. “Some people might be motivated to avoid harming others, including animals, while others might be driven by loyalty to their group or avoiding pathogens.”

The researchers found that the moral foundation of “purity” drives the choice for diet-minded foods while “care” leads to sustainably minded food.

Still, “(W)e can surmise that highly religious individuals may seek to be ideologically pure by actually rejecting organic or natural food products,” the researchers wrote. “As such, marketers can leverage this knowledge to design better products and marketing communications to address the moral foundations driving special food consumption.

“In showing the influence of religiosity on special food consumption as well as the mediating role of moral foundations, ample opportunities for marketers of special food products arise,” the researchers wrote. “First, marketers should consider integrating religion into target market definitions to better create target markets with specific needs and desires for special food products. Similarly, marketers should consider ways to target these religious consumers with offerings that match their desires.

“Marketers might also consider more subtle ways to highlight the fit between special food products and a consumer’s religion by emphasizing moral foundations in words or visuals within branding and marketing efforts. For example, using the words ‘pure’ or ‘purity’ may help religious consumers identify the purity moral foundation that already exists, thereby encouraging consumption of diet-minded foods.”

Liu agrees.

“These findings talk directly to food marketers and give them a sense of how to promote their food products,” Liu said.