Carolina O.C. WERLE is a Senior Professor of Marketing at Grenoble Ecole de Management since 2007. She serves as the Head of the Consumer Behavior Research Team. As a researcher in consumer psychology, her work explores behavioral change strategies to promote well-being in the domains of food, physical activity, and financial decision-making. Her research investigates how psychological processes shape everyday consumer choices, with a particular focus on food labels, self-control, lay beliefs, and public policy efficacy.
She has conducted research on behavioral interventions aimed at improving food choices, promoting physical activity, and supporting debt repayment. She has collaborated with major health institutions in France and across Europe—including the European Commission, the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES), the National Cancer Institute (INCA), Santé Publique France, and the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM)—to evaluate and enhance public health campaigns and dietary guidelines.
Between 2019 and 2023, she served as Director of the PhD Program in Business Administration at Grenoble Ecole de Management.
She has published more than 30 articles in academic journals including Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, Appetite, or Marketing Letters. Her work has also been featured in mainstream media including The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Le Figaro, L’Express, and The Conversation.
Carolina O.C. Werle holds Master degrees in Quantitative Marketing (2003) and Marketing Research (2004) from the University of Grenoble and earned her PhD in Marketing from the University of Grenoble in 2008. She has been a visiting scholar at Cornell University and the University of California, Irvine. She obtained her Habilitation do Direct Research (HDR) in 2014 at the University of Grenoble.
Expertise:
- Behavioral Change
- Food and Health Behaviors
- Self-Control and Lay Beliefs
- Public Policy and Marketing
- Financial Decision-Making
- Experimental Methods in Marketing
- Consumer Behavior
- Food consumption
- Experimental Design
- Effective means of promotion for preventive health campaigns
- Social Marketing
- Obesity prevention
- Marie Schill M., Werle C., 2026.From single-use plastic bans to edible cutlery: Sensory experience outweighs perceived sustainability in driving acceptanceFood Quality and Preference, 144, October: 105982
- Werle C., Boesen-Mariani S., 2026.Integrating dietitians’ perspectives and behavioral efficacy into food-based dietary guidelines implementationSocial Science and Medicine, 403: 119415
- Verfay S., Werle C., 2025.How characters on packaging influence children’s choice of a healthy beverageAppetite, 208, April: 107925
- Pruski Yamim A., Werle C., 2025.Nutri-Score Label Influence on Food Purchase Intention Depends on Consumers’ Expectations of HealthinessAppetite, 207, 107870: 107870
- Basil D., Runte M., Werle C., Chernishenko J., 2025.Relation, exploitation, or Function? Developing a measurement scale and assessing perceptions of non-profit/business partnerships.NonProfit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 255, 3: 725-751
- Werle C., Sirieix L., Pantin-Sohier G., 2024.Marketing and food consumption: Nurturing new possibilitiesRecherche et Applications en Marketing, 39, 3: 2–10
- Shaikh S., Pruski Yamim A., Werle C., 2024.Are all-encompassing better than one-trait sustainable labels? The influence of Eco-Score and organic labels on food perception and willingness to payAppetite, 203, December: 107670
- Werle C., Gauthier C., Pruski Yamim A., Bally F., 2024.How a food scanner app influences healthy food choiceAppetite, 200, September: 107571The use of mobile applications to assist with food decision making has increased significantly. Although food scanner applications provide nutritional information to consumers in the marketplace, little is known about their effects on users’ intentions and behavior. This research investigates whether a mobile food scanner app can influence consumers toward healthier food choices. Four studies tested whether information displayed through a food scanner app (as opposed to no information or front-of-packaging label information) influenced purchase intentions for food products (Studies 1-3) or led consumers to make healthier food choices (Study 4). Application-provided information enhanced hypothetical choice and purchase intentions of healthy products in comparison no information, but it did not influence real behavior when participants made choices in an experimental supermarket. Information provided through a food scanner app was systematically outperformed by front-of-packaging label information.
- Birau M., Werle C., 2024.Will watching the Olympic Games make you eat more?The Conversation: Online
- Werle C., Frison S., Pruski Yamim A., Moura M., 2024.Everyone has debt so I don’t need to pay: How high-debt descriptive norms influence debt payment intentions and behaviorAmerican Marketing Association Winter Conference, American Marketing Association, United States of America