Health Advertising to promote Fruit and Vegetable Intake: Application of need-related Health Audience Segmentation

Given the importance of meaningful audience segmentation in creating effective health advertisements, this study proposes a new segmentation approach based on a theoretical structure of eight fundamental consumer needs. The authors demonstrate the usefulness of this new method in the process of developing appropriate health advertisements in the context of fruit and vegetable consumption. Results of a two-step cluster analysis reveal five different health segments to exist with different health-realted need patterns. Significant differences exist between these segments both with regard to (category-specific) fruit and vegetable consumption and reactions toward fruit and vegetable health advertisements. In general, a segment’s reactions toward appropriate need-related health advertising were significantly more positive than its reactions toward health advertising that has a general character (i.e. not responsive to a segment’s underlying needs). Based on these results some practical suggestions and recommendations are offered for health communicators to use when developing need-related health advertisements to audiences with specific health-related need patterns.