University of Auckland researcher Mary Khalil noticed the volume of food waste in hotels and restaurants and began her project to assess how messaging could impact behavioural change.
Annually, more than 40 percent of all food produced for human consumption is sent to landfill, most of which happens at the household level. This results in significant environmental, financial and social consequences.
"This is why I wanted to explore effective ways to influence people's intentions and behaviours to reduce household food waste," stated Khalil.
Over the three studies, hundreds of participants were instructed to complete various tasks, including one where social marketing advertisements for reducing food waste were evaluated.
One advertisement detailed what could be gained by not wasting food, and another discussed what could be lost in food waste.
The results of the differing advertisements showed that marketing centred around what could be gained from not wasting food had a more significant impact on study participants. The hopeful advertisement had a more significant effect on participants than detailing what was lost due to food waste. It revealed an increase in intention and minimisation of food waste.
Making messaging the focus of her research was due to the easy accessibility and ability for businesses and governments to utilise it to their advantage. Her paper is published in the Journal of Business Research, entitled, ‘Hopefully that’s not wasted. The role of hope in reducing food waste'.
The power of messaging that incorporates what can be gained from minimising food waste illustrated clearly that the positive aspect elicited great hope and motivation in individuals to lower their food waste.
"Our findings show that messages that evoke a positive emotion, such as hope, could be a more effective tool for policymakers and marketers rather than using negative emotions, such as fear or shame, to drive people to take action."
When individuals are driven by hope, Khalil discovered that individuals would put in more effort to find alternative routes to minimise food waste.
"Our research guides policymakers, social marketers, and commercial operators to improve the effectiveness of their messages in reducing food waste through the use of positive emotions which can be brought about by how a message is framed."
Khalil stated that consumers are often struck with uncertainty about the impact their choices have or how important they are in the solution's scale. Thus, positive messaging reinforced the idea within consumers that they could make a positive difference and highlight their impact as something achievable to them.
“People often feel overwhelmed by large-scale problems like global warming and food waste,” said an Associate Professor in Marketing, Bodo Lang. “This is where message framing can help. If you enable people through positive, how-to type messaging and instil hope, they're more likely to act, which helps us all."
