Nudging Consumer Behavior with Social Marketing in Portugal: Can Perception Have an Influence over Trying Insect-Based Food?

Simple Summary The world population has been continuously growing, along with life expectancy. More people living longer results in greater demand for different resources, such as water and energy, but also for food. It becomes imperative to ensure basic needs, including food of good quality. In this sense, providing food for all increases the demand for human and animal protein. Considering that food production, namely animal protein, has been associated with negative impacts on the environment, it becomes crucial to identify more environmentally friendly alternatives to the growing demand for protein. Insect-based feeding is one of these alternatives. However, not all countries have accepted it. Neophobia and disgust are two major barriers. To overcome these barriers, we need to change behaviors. Social marketing campaigns can help. Social marketing campaigns are widely used to inform, educate, communicate, and promote healthy behaviors that add benefits to the individual, but also to society and the environment. Considering the low cost and high quality of insect-based food, this research aims to identify the main factors which can be used by social marketing campaigns to help people to try new foods, such as insect-based food. Although it is considered an important alternative to protein, there are a few countries that have not experienced it. In many Western countries, insect-based food is perceived as being disgusting. Neophobia is also a barrier to trying these foods. The main goal is to analyze if social marketing campaigns might influence perception (familiarity, preparation, visual, and information). Our model proves this assumption because we obtained high path coefficients, indicating that perception influences social beliefs, individual beliefs, and consumption intention. Thus, they will increase the consumption intention.