The Power of Desire?

I believe in the power of desire. I think that human beings quite often are driven by a mixture of emotional and rational reasons. And it will take no one by surprise that I think that emotional decision making is particular high with food consumers. Research suggests that quite often consumers' cognitive processing ressources are constrained and that there is a positive correlation between 'constrained cognitive processing ressources' and 'tendency to act emotionally'.

Such observations have formed my believe in marketing as a powerful tool to influence people towards healthier food choices. However, even loaded with this kind of arguments I am sometimes met with rather forceful counterarguments.

One key objection is that marketing only has limited influence on consumers food behavior, whereas product availability is the structural silver bullet through which we can influence consumer behavior most effectively. In its most simple form the argument claims that by, on the one hand, making healthty food easily available and, on the other, constraining access to unhealthy food, we can effectively influence consumers towards healthier food habits. At the heart of this 'avialability approach' we find the belief that consumer behavior is determined by physical constraints: if it is hard to get hold of a banana, but easy to reach a chocolate bar, then we go for the chocolate. And vice versa.

In my view the 'availability approach' suffers from one fundamental shortcoming: We can only influence food behavior in a situation, where we are the managerial masters of that situation. By managerial control we can get totally rid of unhealthy food in the workplace or school, but beyond these managerial walls where each individuals behavior is determined - not by the boss or the head master - but by the will of that individual, availability is not exactly that magical tool, because of the simple fact that all kinds of products are equally available.

On a daily basis consumers encounter situations, where they have to choose between healthy and unhealthy foods (in the supermarket, cafe, canteen, restaurant). And in such situations the choice between healthy and unhealthy is not determined by availability, but desirability.