This Detail on a Food Label Can Make Food Seem Tastier Before You Even Try It
Key Points A new study found that brand names containing numbers can make consumers expect food and drinks to taste better, even when the products themselves are unchanged.
Written-out numbers, such as “seven,” may make products seem more complex — and therefore tastier — than numerals like “7.”
Numbers aren’t the only branding cue that shapes expectations: Research suggests brand-name length and typeface can also influence how consumers perceive a product’s healthfulness and flavor.
Next time you’re standing in the grocery aisle, deciding between two nearly identical products, take a second to study the labels. Odds are, you’ll think the one with a number in its name will taste better.
A new study by researchers at NEOMA Business School in France and Hanken School of Economics in Finland explored how different branding shapes our beliefs about what a food product may or may not taste like. The study, published in the journal Psychology & Marketing , specifically looked at how brands with numbers in them — think Take 5 or Three Twins Ice Cream — made us feel. And it turns out we’re far more likely to think a product with a number in the name is going to taste better.
Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement To reach this conclusion, the team conducted four experiments: a test measuring how quickly people associated numbered versus non-numbered brand names with taste-related words, an analysis of professional wine-tasting notes, a controlled experiment using mock snack packaging, and a review of more than 1,000 real-world wine ratings.
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In the fake snack packaging experiment, researchers found that chips branded with a written-out number, like “seven,” were rated as tastier than the same chips labeled with the digit “7” or with no number at all. The researchers noted that spelling out a number was a key distinction, and that we may think something is tastier because reading a full word takes slightly more mental effort than glancing at a numeral. That extra effort is then misread by our brains as a sign of complexity and, therefore, quality.
Additionally, the researchers analyzed more than a thousand real wine ratings pulled from a popular wine-rating site and found that the sound of the number seemed to matter, too. The analysis showed that numbers that start with what linguists call a “back vowel,” such as one, two, and four, outperformed those that start with a “front vowel,” such as three, five, or nine. The researchers suggested that back-vowel sounds tend to make our brains perceive the wine as richer and more elaborate.
None of this is because the food actually tastes different. It happens because your brain fills in gaps and forms expectations before your taste buds even get involved.
“The takeaway is that consumers might be more influenced than they think when presented with a brand name that includes a numerical cue,” Nathalie Spielmann, a professor of marketing at NEOMA Business School and author of the study, explained to PsyPost . “Not only does a number positively influence taste perceptions, but this is even more so the case when the number is written versus numerically presented. This occurs because numbers, as well as written numbers, are more complex to read and thus cue complexity.”
Advertisement Advertisement Using a number on the label is far from the only trick brands use to entice you to buy their product. Other research has found that the length of a brand name itself affects how healthy a food seems. A 2023 study found that shorter brand names come across as less “potent” than longer ones, which in turn makes shoppers expect the product to be healthier. Font choices can have a real impact, too, with one study on typeface and taste finding that rounded, softer-looking fonts tend to signal sweetness, while sharper, more angular fonts read as sour.
So, if you piece this together, a package of crackers with a short, round-lettered name might come across as light and healthy, while a wine labeled “Cuvée No. 2” might taste more sophisticated than the same wine with a different name. It’s not exactly dishonest, but it is a bit of trickery that can go a long way toward selling you something.
Read the original article on Food & Wine
