Background: Research in the food domain has found implicit visual nudges to effectively encourage healthier food consumption behaviours. Such research suggests that visual primes may also effectively promote healthier beverage choices, potentially helping to reduce the overconsumption of sugary drinks and encouraging water consumption. To investigate this, two experiments were conducted to explore the effects of four visual primes for nudging drink choices among young adults.
Method: In two experiments, participants (17-25 years) were randomly assigned to view vending machine advertising posters featuring one of four types of pictorial nudges: water, soft drink, general health (runner), or a text-only control. Subsequently, participants selected an item from a vending machine display containing either drinks only (Experiment 1; n = 164), or both drinks and snack foods (Experiment 2, n = 684).
Results: Nudging condition significantly influenced drink choices in both experiments. Specifically, the water image nudged healthier beverage choices in both studies. However, the nudges had no effect on food choices in Experiment 2. Additionally, participants’ liking and habitual consumption of chosen items significantly predicted choice in both experiments, but condition predicted beverage choice over and above these, indicating its unique impact in influencing healthier drink choices.
Conclusions and implications: Findings indicate that implementing simple implicit visual nudges such as those used in these experiments, particularly depicting water, may effectively encourage healthier beverage choices from vending machine environments. Such findings have the potential to inform strategies for reducing overconsumption of sugary drinks, and potentially reducing risk of obesity and related conditions, by subtly encouraging healthier beverage choices.