Industry and marketing like to put faces on products, as numerous studies have shown that humanization has a positive effect on product evaluation and the probability of purchase. A study by the University of Innsbruck published in the “Journal of Consumer Psychology” now shows in several surveys and experiments that consumers like to buy humanized foods such as chocolate beans with a face or gingerbread men, but are reluctant to eat them.
Entire marketing and advertising concepts are based on so-called “anthropomorphism”, such as chocolate beans or eggs with human features, chips, croquettes, etc. They are based on numerous studies that prove the sales-promoting effect of humanized products.
When a study was published in 2015, according to which people not only buy more, but actually eat more biscuits with faces painted on them, marketing expert Roland Schroll from the Department of Strategic Management, Marketing and Tourism at the University of Innsbruck found it “strange”. “Because I personally don’t want to bite into something that has a face on it.” For this reason he has started to study the phenomenon more closely.
In several surveys and experiments that Schroll conducted in the USA and Austria, he recorded the reaction of consumers to foods with human traits.
He showed that consumers do not like to eat them. “When products are humanized, we attribute human characteristics to them, such as the ability to feel pain,” Schroll said. Eating them seems immoral.
Source: Nachrichten
