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October 27, 2005

Becky's Blurbs: Functional Consumer Literacy

Yesterday, bellog posted an article about a new initiative McDonald's is doing in terms of putting the number of calories on the wrappers or packages of their products.

Madhu Viswanathan, Associate Professor who teaches market research here at UIUC, had some thoughts to offer about the topic in the comments section, in case you missed them. Professor Viswanathan has been studying consumer literacy in terms of nutritional labels, costs, etc for quite some time. He has two recent articles published and another one forthcoming, in case you are interested in reading his studies (to see full-text of the links, UIUC Net ID and PW required):

Viswanathan, Madhubalan, Jose Antonio Rosa, and James Harris (2005),
"Decision-Making and Coping by Functionally Illiterate Consumers and Some Implications for Marketing Management," Journal of Marketing, 69(1), 15-31.

Viswanathan, Madhubalan, and Manoj Hastak (2002), "The Role of Summary Information in Facilitating Consumers'Comprehension of Nutrition Information ," Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, 21 (2), 305-18.

Viswanathan, Madhubalan, and Roland Gau, "Functional Illiteracy and
Nutritional Education in the United States: A Research-Based Approach to the Development of Nutritional Education Materials for Functionally Illiterate Consumers," Forthcoming, Journal of Macromarketing.

Professor Viswanathan's work raises issues about how to market products better by educating our consumers. Thanks Professor for your comment.

Posted by Becky at October 27, 2005 9:26 AM Posted to