Many consumers make unhealthy choices, but ‘uptrend messaging’ can help drive healthy behavior
Good nutrition and regular exercise can help prevent disease, but substantial evidence shows that only a minority of consumers adequately engage in these and other recommended healthy behaviors. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control, only 10 percent of Americans eat enough vegetables, 13 percent get enough fruit and 24 percent exercise adequately.
As a result, many healthy behaviors are what experts would consider “descriptively non-normative,” meaning most people don’t follow the recommendations by engaging in them.
In an effort to help marketers design messages to encourage healthy choices, new research from the University of Notre Dame introduces “uptrend messaging.” Rather than focusing on the fact that most consumers don’t follow the recommendations, it instead emphasizes the positive — that the percentage engaging in healthy behaviors is increasing.
“The Uptrend Effect: Encouraging Healthy Behaviors Through Greater Inferred Normativity” is forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing Research from John Costello and Frank Germann, marketing professors in Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, along with Aaron Garvey from the University of Kentucky and James Wilkie, a senior data scientist at Fetch Rewards Inc.
The study states, “A key challenge to developing effective messages that encourage proper diet or exercise is rooted in the unpopularity of these behaviors. And when only a minority of people engage in a health-protective behavior, social marketers cannot truthfully use traditional descriptive normative messaging strategies highlighting that the majority of people engage in that behavior.”
Past research has shown that directly pointing out the unpopularity of a behavior tends to discourage engagement.
“By highlighting the positive, uptrend messaging allows consumers to infer the popularity of that behavior on their own, leading them to believe it is more popular than they otherwise would,” Costello said. “This shift in perceptions leads to greater engagement in the behavior.”
Across seven experimental studies, the team aimed to address the “unhealthy behavior is in the majority” quandary and discovered that uptrend messaging leads people to choose vegetables over crackers for a snack or to take a free apple when offered.
They also test the uptrend effect against existing social norm messaging approaches available to managers and policymakers.
“In both a controlled experiment and a field study conducted using Facebook advertising, we find that uptrend messaging outperforms other norm-based approaches,” Costello said. “Taken together, uptrend messaging offers a novel way to shift perceptions of descriptively non-normative behaviors and a practical tool social marketers and policymakers can use to address important societal issues.”
The team observed consumption behavior on a Notre Dame Football Friday and conducted controlled experiments both online and in behavioral labs at Notre Dame and the University of Kentucky. Across all studies, they found uptrend messaging drives healthy behavior and outperforms the other messaging approaches they tested.
The study shows that social marketers can positively influence healthy behaviors without deceiving consumers or providing inaccurate information.
“Our work provides policymakers and social marketers with an actionable and easy-to-implement messaging strategy that highlights truthful, but unexpected trend information around healthy behaviors,” Costello said. “We find that uptrend messaging can be used to encourage healthy behaviors that improve consumer quality of life.”
Contact: John Costello, 574-631-5171, jcostel4@nd.edu; Frank Germann, 574-631-4858, fgermann@nd.edu
Latest Faculty & Staff
- Three Notre Dame faculty named 2024 Guggenheim FellowsBarbara Montero, a professor of philosophy; Gretchen Reydams-Schils, a professor in the Program of Liberal Studies; and Roy Scranton, an associate professor of English and director of the Creative Writing Program and the Environmental Humanities Initiative, are among the 188 scholars, scientists and artists chosen from approximately 3,000 applicants for the fellowship. The Guggenheim Foundation awards these fellowships to outstanding scholars in order to add to the educational, literary, artistic and scientific power of the country.
- Essays on democracy draw attention to critical threats, explore safeguards ahead of Jan. 6Shortly after Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol building, Notre Dame’s Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy established the January 6th, 2025, Project, which includes 10 Notre Dame faculty who are preeminent scholars of democracy. In an effort to understand the social, political, psychological and demographic factors that led to that troublesome day, the group created a collection of 14 essays aimed at drawing attention to the vulnerabilities in our democratic system and the threats building against it, hoping to create consensus on ways to remedy both problems.
- Carter Snead testifies before US Senate Judiciary CommitteeO. Carter Snead, the Charles E. Rice Professor of Law and director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame, offered expert testimony on Wednesday (March 20) before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary on the current legal landscape following the landmark Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
- In memoriam: Ronald Weber, American studies professor emeritusRonald Weber, a professor emeritus of American studies at the University of Notre Dame, died March 12 in Valparaiso, Indiana. He was 89.
- Political scientist shares China-Global South expertise with policymakersFor more than a decade, China has invested heavily in the economic development of countries collectively known as the Global South. More recently, China has demonstrated that its ambitions are growing beyond the economic realm and extending into the geopolitical sphere. This shift carries implications not only for the developing countries that are the beneficiaries of China’s investment, but also for the United States and other developed democracies, says Joshua Eisenman, associate professor of politics in the Keough School of Global Affairs.
- Jennifer Newsome Martin to succeed O. Carter Snead as director of de Nicola Center for Ethics and CultureSarah Mustillo, the I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of Arts and Letters, has appointed Notre Dame theologian Jennifer Newsome Martin to be the next director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. She will succeed O. Carter Snead, the Charles E. Rice Professor of Law, who will conclude 12 years of service in this role on June 30.