Cueing Consumers to Buy
By Libby Mills, MS, RD, LDN
Today’s Dietitian
Vol. 8 No. 5 P. 50

How foods are marketed and packaged may have more of an influence over your clients’ purchasing habits than you realize.

Every day, consumers purchase foods perceived to be nutritious, wholesome, safe, interesting, and even tasty based on marketing, not necessarily fact. Sometimes, these purchases are too pricey or are bought at the expense of purchasing a more nutritious product.

Food purchasing is habitual. Getting consumers to question, let alone change, their purchasing requires dietitians to look outside the Nutrition Facts box and into the world of marketing. Changing consumers’ purchasing habits is challenging, as dietitians and manufacturers alike know. However, manufacturers make great investments to find the key to unlock consumers’ pocketbooks. They know more about who will be buying the product than perhaps the consumers themselves.

With extensive knowledge of trends and consumer psychology, food marketing plays a powerful role in shaping what is purchased. These strategies are unnoticed by the unquestioning consumer and only reinforce current food-purchasing behavior. To consumers with some awareness, these tactics may seem deceiving. However, knowledgeable consumers can see through the marketing noise and make thoughtful buying decisions.

Trends
Consumers often think manufacturers create trends; however, consumers themselves perhaps equally influence our food system. Dollars spent is one of the greatest influences consumers make, according to the USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS). By the year 2020, ERS predicts food sales will increase by $208 billion.1

How consumers will exert their influential dollar in the future depends somewhat on how they purchase now. Today, food sales represent an estimated $450 to $612 billion industry.2 Stores have long been using shopping cards and scanners to track purchasing, customer demographics, product categories, and buying influences. Purchasing patterns establish trends, predict market changes, forecast sales, and fuel marketing campaigns.

Topping today’s trends, convenience rules production, processing, purchasing, and preparation. Largely possible because of technology, large-scale production, processing, and distribution made a great variety of foods available at many convenient locations at reasonable costs. Purchasing food is remarkably easy, especially for those on the go in a good economy.

No longer a trend limited to a special supermarket aisle, health is a feature of numerous products. More companies are marketing the intrinsic healthfulness and functionality of food. And, consumers are buying health benefits in food for optimal wellness, disease prevention and management, vitality, and vanity (controlling the signs of aging and staying slim).

The health benefits define good and bad foods. Once the weight-loss craze, low-carb has evolved to whole grains and low glycemic index (GI). But the issue of childhood obesity has all foods under the magnifying glass.3

Exposure to different foods through changes in the U.S. population, the media, and travel has heightened consumers’ conscience, sense of community, and curiosity. They are buying more flavors, varieties of vegetables and fruits, and vegetable-based entrees.
Consumers spend to support local and global social issues such as sustainable agriculture and fair trade, as well as the environment. World events, such as war and terrorism, have increased sales of bottled water, canned foods, and foods that can be easily eaten while watching the news.

Marketers are already developing strategies between existing purchasing patterns and predicted changes in the U.S. demographics. By 2020, the U.S. population is expected to grow and shift from the Northeast and Northcentral to the South and West. The population is also anticipated to be more educated, older, and more ethnically diverse.1

Analyses of census and government data, manufacturing research, surveys, experiments, focus groups, interviews, observation, and physiologic measures help marketers strategically tailor food marketing to target specific population segments, as well as position and brand products to capture sales. The stakes are high and competition is fierce.

Consumer Psychology
The more frequently and repeatedly consumers see a product, the more they like it. Though consumers may buy a new product or switch brands with a logical argument, emotional or symbolic appeals have a greater effect. And, price (and perceived value) sells.

Marketers think packages that appeal to consumers’ senses will convince them to buy. With roughly a 21/2-year life, the newer the package design, the better it sells.4

Color
“When there [are] only 15 seconds to grab food shoppers’ attention, color is the most important element for communicating information about a product,” explains Claudia Moran, vice president and director of package design, of St. Louis-based design consulting firm Obata Design, Inc.

Color has different meanings in different cultures. In some cultures, colors are masculine and feminine, and because of regional climates, people may have attractions to cool or warm colors. However, across the United States, there are common color meanings. Reds, oranges, violets, and true greens stimulate hunger. These colors are on the majority of packaging. How the color is distributed on the package—for example, 15% to 20% purple, 70% to 75% gold, and a 5% splash of red—can also stimulate appetite.

Red and yellow, the trademark colors of fast food, encourage eating quickly and quick table turnover. Yellow (happy and warm) and red (stimulating and speed) are probably the most popular colors used on snack food packaging. Red, however, also indicates danger—of eating too much, too quickly, and too often.

Color identifies flavor and edibility. The exception is blue. Though blue conveys trust, reliability, belonging, and coolness and appears on some food packaging, few foods are really blue. Blue can suppress the appetite.

Moran recalls the “lite” movement. “Everything was Pantone 355 green—SnackWell’s.” To this day, low-fat, sugar-free, skim, and “lite” product packages use pale or pastel colors or lighter tones. For example, milk bottle caps and packaging are red for whole, blue for 2%, and light blue for skim. Consumers associate color with products. For example, the Dannon logo is an oval swirl of red, blue, light blue, and white. Though consumers readily associate Dannon with yogurt, the company’s use of the same colors used by the dairy industry packaging communicates “dairy.”

Convenience
Just as important as color in cueing a purchase is convenience. Shelf positioning is key to the ease with which consumers can direct their attention and reach the product.

Convenience fosters impulse purchasing. At points of purchase or near related products, impulse products are often packaged in red-orange, black, and royal blue. Buying these items may satisfy consumers’ emotional needs to be spontaneous, fun, adventurous, a little irrational, and instinctive. But impulse purchases are often unnecessary, regrettable, and not a wise use of money.

Convenience is the perfect solution for rapid-paced lifestyles and dual-earning households. Preparation is a snap with widely available, ready-made meals, salads, and meal kits. Single-serve foods such as oatmeal, soups, water, cheese, yogurt, snacks, and meal replacement bars and drinks make eating easy by preportioning, eliminating cooking, and creating easily opened packaging.

Plastic packaging says efficient, practical convenience to consumers. It weighs less, conforms to the product (taking up less space), and doesn’t break. Plastic can go from the freezer or shelf to the microwave, preserving freshness and flavor. But consumers still need to look for sell-by dates and package damage.

Price Value
Marking food items “on sale” and staging promotions such as “buy one get one free” effectively break many consumers of their buying routine but may not change their buying habits. The sense of getting more value for the price bolsters consumers’ sense of good decision making. Contests, coupons, and prizes redeemable at the point of purchase create buying pleasure and build product loyalty.

Consumers also perceive getting more for the price when the container size and shape appears to hold more. Comparing price per unit between items is a necessary consumer skill, especially when food is packaged in larger containers. Manufacturers “may be able to eliminate 1 ounce from a 10-ounce container, but … cannot as easily get away with reducing a 3-ounce container to 2,” explains Lars Perner, PhD, assistant professor of marketing at San Diego State University, Imperial Valley campus.

Getting more for the price also attracts those who see more value with quality, health, and the experience of food. Ironically, getting more of these values can sometimes be at the expense of less product or a higher price.

Marketers appeal to these consumers via rustic and artisan-looking packaging using greens and browns to convey natural, fresh, growth, and abundance. Appealing to the more affluent buyer and signifying higher quality, manufacturers will use accents of black and gold to show sophistication, prestige, expensiveness, eliteness, or elegance.

Consumers should read labels to be confident the ingredients used in products boasting higher quality, health, and ethnic experience really do contain ingredients that substantiate their package look. For example, a corn chip package with warm “Mexican” colors—yellow, orange, and red—and use of words such as authentic and maize blanco promise more of a Mexican experience than regular corn chips, even though the U.S. manufacturer may have used corn grown in Illinois.

Consumers lacking processing knowledge can be misled to buy the bran health benefits in wheat flour when they are really buying conventionally processed flour from wheat with bran and germ removed. Many consumers don’t realize that whole wheat flour may not include the entire wheat kernel. After milling and sifting, processors add bran back to the flour to make what can be labeled whole wheat; however, the germ is commonly not returned.

Words such as natural may imply that the product is more wholesome but do not mean the product is lower in sugar, fat, or calories. And, natural does not mean the product or its ingredients are organic.

Natural and organic product packages may undergo the same scrutiny of their contents. When designing a potato chip bag, Moran had to balance the need to appeal to consumer desires for natural, environmental concerns, and sustain a three-week product shelf life. The successful result was a plastic bag with a thin aluminum lining that looked like a paper bag. Other packaging must be organic just like the contents.

Health, Education, and Safety
Consumers also spend on products supporting social and environmental issues. Supporting these issues creates both real and virtual communities and a sense of “belonging.” Manufacturers admit new members by printing the “story” on the label—who the producer is, what specific foods make the item special, and when, where, and how the ingredients are produced, harvested, and selected. The story speaks of quality, social and environmental responsibility, and wholesomeness.

Packages can also be educational. POM Wonderful Pomegranate Juice from POM Wonderful uses plastic “bulbed” containers to simulate the shape of a pomegranate. Winning the 2003 National Association of Container Distributors Award, the design reinforces what the product is—pomegranate juice from the fruit.

Health claims attract consumers’ desire for wellness and disease management. But buying “health” may not be buying more nutrition. “Lite” juices, made with the addition of water and artificial sweeteners, may cost more and deliver half the nutrients. And, lite bread delivers more air and a skinnier slice for more money.

“There is always the dilemma—to show the product through the packaging or not, as with raw meat and poultry,” Moran explains. Sometimes a picture of raw meat looks less appetizing than the product. However, the actual product may have color variations, parts of the animal—pinfeathers on foul or blood-tinted juices—that consumers may find a turn-off.

Choosing to let the consumer see the product gestures truthfulness. Ground beef processors have considered packaging in a white container with a clear plastic top—like ground turkey. The white container suggests that the product is sanitary and pure. The plastic, leak-proof seal eliminates possible drippage. Eliminating leaks and conveying an openness to the consumer builds trust about the product’s integrity, quality, and sanitation.

Buying ground beef packaged in plastic does reduce the spread of contact germs and is better protected from contamination once sealed. But, the new package only distracts from issues of sell-by dates, E. coli recalls, and mad cow disease.

Cues to Change
Educating consumers on marketing strategies may decrease consumers’ blind food purchasing. But even marketers know that the logical argument isn’t always enough to change food buying habits.

Purchasing patterns may identify needs to protect or direct the consumer. For example, public policies and government warnings such as legal limits for certain food additives or colorings have been established. And, purchasing patterns have catalyzed social programs such as recycling and 5 A Day.

Dietitians may find that by marrying their education with marketing strategies, they can be very persuasive in changing food purchasing patterns.

• Give nutrition and food education an emotional appeal.

• Appeal to social needs by creating “reference groups” to which consumers can compare themselves: “aspirational”—athletes; “associative”—coworkers or church members; and “dissociative”—who they don’t want to be like (eg, couch potatoes).

• Show price and time savings comparisons to change the perceived price-value of buying healthier foods.

• Tasting is believing that nutritious food is tasty.

• Forget changing health beliefs. Build on existing beliefs and add new beliefs.

• Create “feel-good” slogans, contests, or characters.

— Libby Mills, MS, RD, LDN, is a speaker, an author, and a wellness consultant.

References
1. Blisard N, Biing-Hwan L, Cromartie J, et al. America’s changing appetite: Food consumption and spending to 2020. Food Review. 2002;25(1):3.

2. The Future of Food Retailing in the U.S. Available at: http://www.just-food.com/store/products_detail.asp?art=39356&lk=rotw. Accessed March 12, 2006.

3. Top Ten Food Trends for 2005. Available at: http://www.ferret.com.au/articles/cc/0c02c2cc.asp. Accessed March 12, 2006.

4. Package Design — How It Affects What You Buy. Available at: http://couponing.about.com/cs/aboutcouponing/a/colorme.htm. Accessed March 21, 2006.

Resources
Hawkins DI, Best RJ, and Coney KA. Consumer Behavior: Building Marketing Strategy, 7th ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 1998.

Kohls R, Uhl J. Marketing of Agricultural Products, 9th ed. Prentice-Hall, 2001.
What Colors Make Your Services Most Attractive? Available at: http://advertising.mcdar.net/1754.php. Accessed March 12, 2006.

Playing Fair With Kids
The Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus works with industry to ensure that ads targeting children are truthful and fair. Industry-supported, the CARU system self-regulates based on principles that honor the children’s age and maturity, need for and use of imagination, appropriateness of the product for children, ability to be educated through ads, need to have positive social and health behaviors reinforced, exposure to diversity, and support the parent-child relationship.

For more information, visit www.caru.org.

— LM