I am chagrined to report that the Food Marketing Cabal has found another way to make us buy stuff we might not otherwise want. Scientific studies show that ‘numerical cues’ in advertising influence our decisions…
It seems that simply including a number – expressed as its digits or written out in words – can influ-ence shoppers to buy a product when that’s the only difference between it and another product that otherwise identical.
What they did
A team of researchers from the NEOMA Business School in France and the Hanken School of Econ-omics in Finland explored how branding shapes shoppers’ beliefs about what a food product may or may not taste like.
Specifically, they wanted to know how including numbers in brand names can sway shoppers’ buying decisions.
Food & Wine relates, the team staged 4 separate experiments measuring how subjects numbered versus non-numbered brand names with taste-related words, an analysis of professional wine-tasting notes, a controlled experiment using mock snack packaging, and a review of more than 1,000 real-world wine ratings. measuring how quickly people associated numbered versus non-numbered brand names with taste-related words, an analysis of professional wine-tasting notes, a controlled experiment using mock snack packaging, and a review of more than 1,000 real-world wine ratings.
What they found
The study, published in the journal Psychology & Marketing, concluded that shoppers are MUCH more likely to believe that a product with a number in its name tasted better than one without a number.
At the fundamental level, the team concluded that their finding was the result of a psychological phenomenon based deep in our brains. Before we even actually taste a food, the brain fills in gaps and forms expectations. Since numbers make brand names more cognitively complex, the brain has more gaps to fill. And that opens up a chance to create greater expectations.
The takeaway
“The takeaway is that consumers might be more influenced than they think when presented with a brand name that includes a numerical cue,” Nathalie Spielmann, a professor of marketing at NEOMA Business School and author of the study, explained to PsyPost. “Not only does a number positively influence taste perceptions, but this is even more so the case when the number is written versus numerically presented. This occurs because numbers, as well as written numbers, are more complex to read and thus cue complexity.”
My take
Food & Wine also notes: “Using a number on the label is far from the only trick brands use to entice you to buy their product. Other research has found that the length of a brand name itself affects how healthy a food seems.”
As well, “A 2023 study found that shorter brand names come across as less “potent” than longer ones, which in turn makes shoppers expect the product to be healthier. Font (typeface) choices can have a real impact, too, with one study on typeface and taste finding that rounded, softer-looking fonts tend to signal sweetness, while sharper, more angular fonts read as sour.”
So… Next time you’re in the supermarket and you feel as though the store is ‘getting into your head’ – you’re probably right!
~ Maggie J.