title: Micro-marketing healthier choices: effects of personalized ordering suggestions on restaurant purchases.
abstract: We study the effects of the Nutricate receipt, which makes personalized recommendations to switch from unhealthy to healthier items at a restaurant chain. We find that the receipts shifted the mix of items purchased toward the healthier alternatives. For example, the share of adult main dishes requesting "no sauce" increased by 6.8 percent, the share of kids' meals with apples (instead of fries) rose by 7.0 percent and the share of breakfast sandwiches without sausage increased by 3.8 percent. The results illustrate the potential of emerging information technologies, which allow retailers to tailor product marketing to individual consumers, to generate healthier choices.
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, University of California, Santa Barbara 93106, USA. Electronic address: kelly.bedard@ucsb.edu.
authors.forename: Kelly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bedard
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, University of California, Santa Barbara 93106, USA. Electronic address: peter.kuhn@ucsb.edu.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kuhn
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002755:Choice Behavior; D057140:Fast Foods; D005515:Food Labeling / Q000379:methods; D005518:Food Preferences / Q000523:psychology; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D040541:Marketing / Q000379:methods; D017059:Models, Econometric; D009518:New York; D012147:Restaurants / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
keywords: Calories; Fast food; Fat; Marketing; Obesity; Restaurant