Abstract: With the enhancement of people’s health awareness, advertisers have launched various health appeal advertisements that have gained popularity among consumers. However, taste appeal advertisements also enjoy considerable popularity. Which approach should enterprises adopt—health-oriented marketing or taste-focused messaging—in order to more effectively stimulate consumers’ food purchase behavior? To address this, based on the self-discrepancy theory, this study, taking into consideration that people have different tendencies to narrow the difference between their actual and ideal selves, explores the interaction effect of (health vs. taste) advertising appeal and (high vs. low) self-accountability on consumers’ food purchase intention, while considering the moderating role of product type (unhealthy vs. healthy). Study 1a and 1b demonstrate that under the condition of high (low) self-accountability, healthy (taste) appeals will significantly enhance consumers’ food purchase intention. Based on the theoretical basis of the goal-based choice model, Study 2 shows that the extent ot which functional/hedonic goal is activated mediates how advertising appeal and self-accountability interactively act on food purchase intention. Furthermore, Study 3 reveals that product type (unhealthy vs. healthy) can serve as a boundary condition under which the above effect holds. Specifically, for unhealthy products, the interaction effect between advertising appeal and self-accountability is significant; for healthy products, the above effect is not significant. The conclusions of this study expand the theoretical connotation of the self-discrepancy theory and the goal-based choice model, and provide important practical enlightenment for enterprises in the aspects of different appeal advertising design and product promotion.

Key words: health appeal, taste appeal, self-accountability, goal activation, food purchase intention