Can We-Media Help Reduce the Consumption of Sugary Fruit Juice Drinks With the Presence of the Halo Effect?—Insights From A Discrete Choice Experiment in Beijing, China

While fruit juices are widely considered healthy, their high sugar contents are often masked by a “halo effect” created by the positive image of fruits. This study, taking orange juice as a focal product, explores the role online self-media plays in reducing consumers’ sugary drink consumption with the presence of a halo effect. A discrete choice experiment (with attributes including fruit juice concentration, sugar content, taste, and price) was conducted in Beijing, China, to measure changes in consumers’ choices induced by randomly provided sugar content information. Four treatments containing the same basic information on the sugar content of sugary drinks, with different presentation forms (three text messages and a short video) and specificity levels, were designed for the experiment. Estimated mixed-logit models indicate that all four treatments significantly reduced participants’ likelihood of choosing high-sugar orange juices, with the short-video treatment being the most effective. It is likely that the video helped consumers convert a vague concept (sugar content) into a concrete one (sugar cubes). It is also possible that, with videos, consumers can passively assimilate information with less effort than reading text instructions.