Can Point-of-sale Nutrition Information and Health Warnings Encourage Reduced Preference for Sugary Drinks?: An Experimental Study

Point-of-sale (POS) interventions that prompt consumers to more critically evaluate sugary drinks could encourage reduced consumption of these drinks and reinforce public health campaign messages. This study tested whether: (i) POS nutrition information and health warnings about sugary drinks promote healthier drink choices and (ii) impacts of prominent POS signs on drink choices vary based on participants' self-reported prior exposure to a sugary drink public health campaign. In an online experiment, 3034 Australian adults aged 18-59 years who were past-week sugary drink consumers were randomly assigned to one of five POS signage conditions (no signage (control); sugar content of specific beverages; Health Star Rating of specific beverages; generic text health warning about sugary drinks; generic graphic health warning about sugary drinks) and shown their randomly assigned POS sign alone, then alongside a drinks product display and asked to select which drink they would choose to buy. The proportion selecting a sugary drink was significantly lower among participants who viewed either the sugar content (29%), Health Star Rating (33%) or graphic health warning (34%) signs compared to those who saw no sign (43%). These effects held for participants who did not recall previously seeing the campaign; however, for participants with self-reported prior exposure to the campaign, POS signs did not promote significant reductions in sugary drink choices. POS signage has the potential to shift consumers away from choosing sugary drinks and could complement mass media campaigns by reaching people who may not otherwise be exposed to sugary drink public health messages.