Put a McD's label on it, it'll taste better

[MarketStEl]

Associated Press story in today's Philadelphia Daily News:

CHICAGO - Anything made by McDonald's tastes better, preschoolers said in a study that powerfully demonstrates how advertising can affect the taste buds of young children.

Even carrots, milk and apple juice tasted better to the kids when they were wrapped in the familiar packaging of the Golden Arches.

The study had youngsters sample identical McDonald's foods in name-brand and unmarked wrappers. The unmarked foods always lost the taste test.

I don't even want to get into the implications for the concept of free will that this raises. It's bad enough to contemplate that our very psychophysiology can be branded and rewired in this fashion.

And yet, on further reflection, this shouldn't be so surprising. There have been experiments over the years that have demonstrated that people will ascribe differences to identical items merely because one of them has a name that triggers positive associations.

But how do we counter this trait? Can we train ourselves to put up psychic defenses against this sort of thing? Is it really worth it for us to do so?

At the very least, we should consider restricting advertising aimed at the youngest and most impressionable.

Edited August 7, 2007 by MarketStEl (log)

[munchymom]

That's really fascinating. I think adults experience the same thing; people buy their preferred brand of processed foods even though many processors package identical products in different brand labels (like one company manufactures "name-brand" and "generic" canned green beans, but the green beans are the same.)

What I would like to see is a follow-up where the choice wasn't between "branded" and "plain", but between different brands (identical fries in a McDonalds, Wendy's, and Burger King package for instance.) Or even put logos on the packages that are not of food companies, like Mickey Mouse. Would the most popular logo cause the best tasting food?

I don't think it's practical to restrict advertising at the source; I prefer to restrict it at the destination (e.g. we don't watch commercial TV most of the time, and when we do we mute the sound during ads.)

[dividend]

This shouldn't be at all suprising - it's a matter of expectations influencing taste, and it happens with adults all the time. That's sort of what this thread is about. I've certainly had the experience of dining at a restaurant that I'm hyped up about, and avidly enjoying something that I might not be so enthusiastic about in another context.

The other reason this shouldn't be suprising is because this is the intent of every product marketed to children - take a walk down the cereal or candy aisle of your grocery store and you know which brands your kids are going to want.

There have been experiments over the years that have demonstrated that people will ascribe differences to identical items merely because one of them has a name that triggers positive associations.

But how do we counter this trait? Can we train ourselves to put up psychic defenses against this sort of thing? Is it really worth it for us to do so?

At the very least, we should consider restricting advertising aimed at the youngest and most impressionable.

I don't think it's something that can be countered, nor would you want to. The reasons we're suceptible to this kind of associative marketing is linked to the reasons that a certain smells can provoke physical nostalgia, certain songs can stop us in our tracks with a reverie, and the reasons for the power of childhood comfort foods.

[docsconz]

It may be for the same reason that I think all things McD taste worse.

[MarketStEl]

Good points, both of you. And come to think of it, dividend, your .sig quote, while not reflecting "brand consciousness" the way this study or the thread you referenced does, taps into those same psychic associations. Obviously there was something about the all-you-can-eat pizza buffet that satisfied him in a way nothing else could, and never mind that most people would have found that something else better. (Of course, the possibility exists that the "something" was that it was all-you-can-eat, in which case, your ex was nothing more than a glutton, and you're better off without him/her anyway.)

I guess I need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water. But there's still something just a little unsettling about this, even if it does attest to the power of the other field my own is related to, namely, marketing.

[Anna Friedman Herlihy]

This study just reminded me that when hubby and I do finally have some rugrats (probably in the next two years or so--I'm getting old--yikes!), they are never going to be allowed to watch tv (well, at least as long as I can possibly control that). I might just have to keep them in isolation until they've successfully developed extremely broad palates (which, I think, is what my folks did--I can't really remember watching tv until I was at least fully into elementary school--and by that time I was already a devoted fan of such "adult" foods as liver, sweetbreads, spicy peppers, cruciferous veggies, et al.).