27/06/2025
If you have ever overindulged with your eating, one of the nice things to know, it may not be your fault.
What? Not your fault? No-one forced your mouth open and stuffed your mouth with an extra portion of chips. No-one threatened you to either eat another slice of chocolate cake or face dire consequences!
Well yes, that might be true, but we have known from the scientific literature that food marketing works and that’s why food companies spend tens of billions every year, making sure that we buy their food. In 2020, McDonalds spent $654 million on marketing. Yes that’s almost half a billion pounds from one company! McDonalds wouldn’t spend that much money if marketing didn’t work.
One of the key techniques used by these companies is something called ‘priming’. As one scientific journal put it, ‘priming is used to evoke specific memories of associations that make a person more disposed to act in a particular way’. This is often done in a way that the consumer doesn’t even know what is happening.
One famous study that showed this was the French Wines and German Wines experiment. French accordion and German Bierkeller pieces were played on different days and when the French music was played, more French wine was purchased. When the German music was played, more German wine was purchased.
What was even more surprising was that customers were not aware that their decisions were being influenced. In fact other studies have shown that people actually deny that they have been influenced.
You can read more about this at:
https://www.nature.com/articles/36484
