MARKETING HEALTH FOOD: THE STRATEGIC AND ETHICAL MARKETING PLAN UTILIZING SOCIAL MEDIA
Open Access
- Author:
- Lewis, Sara Elana
- Area of Honors:
- Marketing
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Jennifer Coupland, William Ross, Thesis Supervisor
William Ross, Thesis Supervisor
Jennifer Chang Coupland, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Social Media
Ethics
Food
Marketing - Abstract:
- The purpose of my research is to contribute an in depth look into what is going on in health food marketing today, a success and failure story of health food marketing through NAKEDpizza, and original research on, the link between social media marketing and health food buying behavior. The results of my correlational research showed a significant correlation between using nutritional values to make better purchases and consumers’ likeliness to buy foods found on social media sites. A second correlation was found significant for the degrees to which respondents like social media marketing with consumer’s likeliness to buy products found on social media sites. These two correlations yield a positive association between the extent consumers like social media marketing to buy healthier foods found on social media sites. Only, we must assume using nutritional values to make better purchasing decisions, which translates into buying healthier products. Exploratory research was also conducted, through an original survey, on the ethics of marketing olestra and how consumers feel and react to social media for health food marketing. The end result of my research provides a ten-step effective and ethical marketing communication strategy for healthier foods. The steps include; 1: Target Consumers Needs Creatively, 2: Ethically Map out Product, 3: Consider six Uncontrollable Environmental Factors, 4: Adjust Consumer’s Misconceptions about Product, 5: Provide Promotions in a Catchy and Un-preachy Manner, 6: Establish and Update Strong Social Media Marketing Presence, 7: Listen and React to Consumers Feedback, 8: Brand Image Corresponds with Brand Actions, 9: Increase Community Outreach and 10: Consistently Evaluate the Strategy.