Swallow Rejections of Engineered Health Foods

People associate all-natural with health enhancement. But if we augment an all-natural food with a health-enhancing supplement, many shoppers will now reject the resulting innovative concoction. Strangely, dislike holds most strongly for people who are highly receptive to novel experiences.
     The Vilnius University and University of Groningen researchers say this happens because people with a low preference for predictability are especially sensitive to ambivalent feelings, and engineered foods generate ambivalent feelings. On the positive side of the item choice, there are the promised additional health benefits. On the negative side, human-engineered supplementation pollutes the natural. The attraction of nature is multifaceted. Some involves adventuresomeness, which is satisfied when trying out an innovative item. Some involves simplicity, which is disrupted when chemicals are added as ingredients.
     The products considered in the different experiments included milk, drinking water, and wheat crackers. In each case, some study participants were asked to consume or to indicate opinions after receiving a description of the item with a health-enhancing supplement, while other participants were asked to do the same when the item was not described as including the supplement. The reduced attractiveness of augmented items was found across the experiments, indicating that the findings can be generalized to the whole category of innovative functional foods. Further, it was found that a reduced attraction to one of the items was associated with a reduced attractiveness of the broad category of innovative functional foods.
     The researchers suggest to marketers that they target innovative functional food sales to consumers who show a high preference for predictability. These are people who would probably agree with statements such as, “I dislike unpredictable situations and I do not enjoy the uncertainty of going into a new situation without knowing what might happen.” Also, in the marketing messages, emphasize overall healthfulness rather than engineered characteristics.
     The researchers also suggest that marketers take into account the ambivalence and anxiety associated with accepting any innovative item. This same point was made by York University researchers who asked groups of consumers to consider using radically novel products, such as black facial tissue. Study participants preferred a well-known brand of these items to a lesser-known brand and favored items associated with a geographical region with which the consumer identified. The consumers were easing their anxiety by introducing the familiar. Once the study participants employed the additional choice criteria, judgments of the innovative items became more positive.

Successfully influence the most prosperous & most loyal consumer age group. For the specific strategies & tactics you need, click here.

Click for more…

Excite Consumers with Nature 

Dominate Anxiety Around Radical Innovations