New research shows just how much taste can be influenced by language
When grocery shopping, do you pay attention to the language used on packaging? Are there certain words that make you immediately put a product back, or toss it into your basket? Of course, we all know that the marketing departments of food producers are working at full speed to persuade us to choose that particular product. But a recent study produced some pretty interesting conclusions about how language influences consumers.
The study was conducted in the United States at Ohio State University, but the wording used in the tests naturally corresponds quite closely to how producers label their products here in the Netherlands. “New!” and “Now even better!” are terms used fairly universally to promote goods. But does all of that really make such a difference?
No difference, yet a difference
For this study, crackers and chocolate chip cookies, all exactly the same, were labeled with different texts on the packaging, including ‘consumer complaint’ and ‘new and improved’. The first case is easy to guess: although there was nothing wrong with the crackers and cookies, the test panel still found them unappealing. ‘Stale’ and ‘musty’ were the reactions.
It doesn’t work both ways
The surprise came from how it worked in the opposite direction. The negative reactions to the ‘pessimistic’ labels were very strong. But the positive responses examined with the ‘promotional’ labels were much weaker; those kinds of texts seemed to leave the test subjects relatively cold. The conclusion was that people remember negative feelings much better when eating something that was not quite right (even if that was only their own perception) than positive highs when eating something whose packaging tried to convince them how good (or new) it was.
Conclusion
Do you let the wording on packaging or in advertisements guide you? Or do you prefer to stick with what you already know, despite the ‘improvements’? In any case, this kind of research could well lead manufacturers to adjust their language if it turns out that consumers do not consider constant so-called innovation all that important.
Read also:
- Recipe: Chocolate Chip Cookies from the Airfryer ?
- You didn’t know this about crackers (and you won’t fall for it again!)
- Eddie’s food annoyances: the crunching of your cracker in company
Source: research by Ohio State University
