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MARKETING OF FOOD. In order to understand how food is marketed in grocery stores or in restaurants or other food outlets, it is important to understand how consumers make choices among food options. It is generally believed that, although consumers sometimes have strong, stable preferences for some foods—for example, one may have a clear, unambiguous preference for sardines over and above any other food—more often than not, consumers' preferences are constructed on the spot and are contingent on a variety of factors, such as the social context, the other choices available, or the decision-maker's consumption goals. Therefore consumers do not always choose the same brands, or the same products, each time they go to the store. In this kind of decision context, marketing stimuli can be very effective at persuading consumers to buy one brand over another. In particular, the packaging and the branding of foods can be influential in how consumers choose among food items.

Packaging Strategies

There has been a great deal of research done on how packaging influences consumers' perceptions of products. The first research in packaging was done in the 1930s when self-service supermarkets were becoming more popular. At this time, marketers placed identical detergents in two different packages: one had circles on the outside and the other had triangles. The marketers asked consumers which product they preferred and why. Eighty percent of the consumers preferred the product in the box with circles because they believed it had "higher quality." Even when the consumers took the two boxes of detergent home and used both products, the belief that the one in the box with circles was of higher quality persisted. This example points out an important aspect of the marketing of food: it is the perception of quality, not the actual quality, that influences consumers' decision making.

The packaging can influence a consumer's decision about what foods to choose even more than the taste of the product in some cases. One aspect of packaging that is very influential is the package shape. One of the most successful campaigns has been the Absolut Vodka campaign in which the shape of the distinctive Absolut Vodka bottle is featured in all of its advertising. Whereas some people may not be able to differentiate among the tastes of vodka in a blind taste test, they can easily differentiate between the different packages. Coca-Cola has also been successful in creating a distinctive bottle shape that influences perceptions about the taste of their product. One of the most famous bottle shapes is the Heinz ketchup bottle, which has been called the "best-known bottle in the world." The irony in this shape is that it is not really conducive to the use of ketchup as it is difficult to get the product out of the bottle. Heinz however used this difficulty as a positive feature in their advertising by promoting "ketchup races" in which being the last one to come out of the bottle was perceived as an advantage because it indicated the ketchup was very thick.

During the 1990s, Campbell's was concerned about decreasing sales of the company's soup. The marketing department did research to try and discover how to increase consumers' interest in their soup. Their research indicated that new soup in the old package would taste the same, but familiar soup in a new can would taste different. So Campbell's redesigned the label on their soup cans. The familiar red and white Campbell's soup can (made famous by Andy Warhol) was changed so that the red banner was thinner and a photograph of the soup in a bowl was placed on the white banner on the can. In fact, Campbell's was so convinced that the new labeling, rather than a change in the soup, would be a decisive factor in persuading consumers to buy their soup again that they declared right on the can, "New Look, Same Great Soup."

Framing Strategies

Another aspect of marketing that influences consumers' perceptions about the food, which in turn affects consumers' choices, is how the product is positioned or framed. Ground beef that is 75 percent lean beef and 25 percent fat can be labeled either way: as 75 percent lean or 25 percent fat. Although these alternative labels convey the same information, however, they will not affect consumers' perceptions about the product equally. Studies showed that labeling the beef as 75 percent lean as opposed to 25 percent fat increases sales. The framing of the product can even be implicit. For example, the placement of a product in a certain aisle in the supermarket can affect the framing of the product. Consider Guiltless Gourmet Tortilla Chips. Placing this item in the regular chip aisle suggests that the product is a low-fat, perhaps worse-tasting, alternative, compared to the other chips. Placing the same product in the health food aisle suggests that the product is a better-tasting snack as compared to other alternatives.

Supermarket Layout

In general, the physical layout of the supermarket can also affect consumers' food-shopping decisions. Everyone knows that many supermarkets place high-demand items such as milk in the back of the store so that consumers are required to walk through the entire store and perhaps purchase extra items. Similarly, marketers can use cross-merchandising techniques in the supermarket to try to influence decisions. Cross merchandising is a promotional technique that ties a promotion for one product to the promotion of another. For example, Duncan Hines might include a coupon for its frosting in a cake mix box, or Rice Krispies might include a coupon for Marshmallow Fluff in its cereal box. Similarly, in the physical store, marketers can link together certain items to encourage purchase. For example, higher-priced salad dressing might be located closer to the fresh produce, or a coupon for one product might be located on the shelf of another, higher-traffic product category. In another example, an in-store coupon for a health and beauty aid product could be located in the high-traffic bathroom tissue aisle. Some of these cross-merchandising strategies might be even more effective if consumers begin shopping for groceries on the Internet.

Branding Strategies

Another aspect of food marketing that can very much affect consumers' decisions is branding. From the consumer's point of view, a brand name is generally a strong influence on purchase if three elements of the brand name are in place. First, the consumer must have a positive evaluation of the brand name. Second, the brand name must be easy to remember and strongly associated with the product category. The ease with which the name is remembered when a consumer thinks of a category will depend on the frequency with which the consumer has seen the brand associated with the category, how recently the consumer has seen the brand, and the salience of these connections for the consumer. In addition, a strong association with the category will depend on how similar the brand is to others in the category and also how prototypical the brand is to the category. For example, Coke is seen as a prototypical soft drink and thus will easily come to mind when the category "soft drinks" is evoked. Finally, the brand image and evaluation must be consistent over time. In particular, a very strong brand name is one in which a consumer holds favorable associations that are unique to that brand and that imply some kind of differential advantage over other brands.

One of the strongest brand names in food marketing is the Coca-Cola brand name. After years of advertising and marketing, Coke also has a very strong, clear, consistent brand image—therefore, consumers form clear associations with it. For example, consumers may recall the packaging (the distinctive bottle or the red can), the taste of the product, or the current advertising appeals—for example, "Coke is the real thing." It is thought of as a "fun drink." Coke is also positioned as a different drink than Pepsi or its other competitors. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Coke has a clear emotional bond and relationship with its customers. Coke learned just how important that brand name was in 1985 when they considered taking the old Coca-Cola product off the grocery shelves and replacing it with "New Coke." This prompted strong consumer reaction. Consumers felt that Coke violated something that was "theirs"—they felt that the Coke brand name belonged to its consumers and that Coca-Cola could not remove this classic icon from the market. Coke eventually returned "Classic Coke" to the marketplace to the delight of its customers.

Brand names can also influence consumers' perceptions of new products. If a marketer puts a familiar brand name on a new product, for example, Oreo cookie ice cream sandwiches, the consumer immediately knows something about the product even if she has never seen it before. Marketers are usually very careful about which new products they support with existing brand names as sometimes these brand extensions can backfire. For example, although Miller Lite was a very successful brand extension because the new light beer was instantly recognized and adopted in the marketplace, the new light brand had a negative effect on the main Miller High Life brand by causing consumers to think the original brand was less hearty.

In conclusion, sometimes when consumers go into the supermarket or into a restaurant to buy food, they have clear preferences for the foods they are buying and are not influenced by the food packaging, merchandising, branding, or promotion. However, more often than not, food preferences are not that stable and are constructed on the spot. In these cases, what consumers end up buying can be swayed by marketing cues in the environment such as labeling, branding, and packaging.

See also Advertising of Food; Food Cooperatives; Food Politics: United States; Food Supply, Food Shortages.

Barbara E. Kahn