COLUMBUS, Ohio–A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but a chocolate chip cookie labeled “consumer complaint” won’t taste as good as the exact same product described as “new and improved,” a new study suggests.
Researchers labeled identical saltine crackers and chocolate chip cookies as either “new and improved,” “factory typical” or “consumer complaint” for the study, and then asked participants to taste the food samples and judge each on likability, freshness and a range of other qualities.
The crackers and cookies labeled “consumer complaint” received significantly lower overall liking ratings than the samples labeled “new and improved.” This held true for both saltines –...
COLUMBUS, Ohio—Explaining the value of misshapen vegetables—that they are as healthful as their picture-perfect counterparts and buying them helps reduce food waste—could help improve sales of “ugly” produce, new research suggests.
The study measured consumers’ responses to hypothetical shopping scenarios for carrots. Participants were most open to buying bunches containing imperfect carrots after being presented with both of those marketing messages promoting ugly carrots’ personal and societal benefits. Either message alone was not effective at convincing consumers to buy misfit carrots.
Findings also showed that respondents were willing to pay, with a small discount, for some level of mixed bunches containing both ugly and standard...
COLUMBUS, Ohio–The opportunity to make a small charitable donation on a store owner’s nickel may be just the encouragement shoppers need to forgo toting their goods home in a single-use plastic bag, new research suggests.
In the study, conducted at two convenience stores on a college campus, giving customers a 5-cent token toward a charitable donation in exchange for their rejection of a disposable bag reduced plastic bag use by about 30%.
The researchers experimented with the 5-cent donation concept as an application of the behavioral economics theory known as nudging. According to the theory, nudging can gently guide people in a certain direction but not restrict their options. And to count as a nudge, an initiative has to be low-cost.
“We had seen that a few...
