ArticleThe international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity2018
Targeted retail coupons influence category-level food purchases over 2-years.
Article in The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Food marketing, eating and health outcomes in children and adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis.The British journal of nutrition · 2025Pooled it
- A systematic review of supermarket automated electronic sales data for population dietary surveillance.Nutrition reviews · 2022Pooled it
- The impact of the consumer and neighbourhood food environment on dietary intake and obesity-related outcomes: A systematic review of causal impact studies.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2022Pooled it
- How causal machine learning can leverage marketing strategies: Assessing and improving the performance of a coupon campaign.PloS one · 2023Article
- Influence of Food and Beverage Companies on Retailer Marketing Strategies and Consumer Behavior.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Review
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTargeted coupons strongly influence purchasing behavior and may represent an innovative approach for improving dietary behaviors.
methodsThe retail analytics firm, Dunnhumby, provided secondary retail data containing grocery transactions, targeted coupon exposures, and coupon use for 2500 households over 2-years. The USDA Quarterly At-Home Food Purchasing Database was used to categorize individual foods into 52 categories and combined into 12 food groups. Mixed effects linear models estimated the difference-in-difference effects of coupon exposure on category-level purchase rate/wk. pre- and post-campaign; models also tested effect modification by food category.
resultsCategory-level food purchases significantly increased post-campaign. Mean (SD) food purchases/wk. Among exposed households (17.34 (13.08) units/wk) vs. unexposed households (3.75 (4.59) units/wk) were higher (p < 0.001). Difference-in-difference effects of coupon exposure showed a higher increase in purchase rate among exposed vs. unexposed households (5.73 vs. 0.67, p < 0.001). Food category significantly modified the association between coupon exposure and coupon campaign. Category-level purchase rate among exposed vs. unexposed households was relatively higher in less healthful (e.g. convenience foods) vs. more healthful categories (e.g. nuts) with a 1.17 unit/wk. increase in convenience foods purchase (p < 0.001) vs. a 0.03 unit/wk. increase in nuts (p < 0.001). Exploratory analyses suggested that price elasticity of food categories for targeted coupons (1.02-2.81) was higher than previous estimates for untargeted coupons.
conclusionAcross food categories, coupon exposure increased category-level purchase rate, with a relatively larger effect size for less healthful than more healthful categories. Promising results from this preliminary study suggest that experimental research is warranted to determine whether targeting with the explicit purpose of improving dietary quality can more effectively influence diet, and whether it can do so more cost effectively.
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