← The Brainy Business | Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy | Behavioral Economics
The Brainy Business | Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy | Behavioral Economics
446. The Taste of Success: How Flavor Impacts Buying Behavior
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In this episode of The Brainy Business podcast, host Melina Palmer revisits a fascinating topic: the sense of taste. Originally aired as episode 26, this episode is part of a series exploring the five senses and their impact on behavioral economics...
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Melina Palmer
Hey there Melina. Here I'm excited to share. I'm teaching two virtual courses in Applied Behavioral Economics which are enrolling now. Advanced concepts of Behavioral Economics and Internal communication and Change management. So if you're interested, don't delay, learn more and enroll at HBL. Like Human BehaviorLab, TAMU like Texas A&M University EDU. Again, that's HBL TAMU EDU EDU and click on Certificate program when you're ready. Let's start the show. Welcome to episode 446 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. Today's episode is all about the sense of taste. Ready? Let's get started. You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now here's your host, Melina Palmer. Hello. Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. Today's episode is all about the sense of taste. When this episode first came out, it was originally number 26 of the show, right at that six month mark, which is crazy to think about, and was part of a five part series I did on the senses and how they apply to Bay, behavioral economics and human decision making. Even if your business is fully virtual and you sell services instead of products, trust me when I say that you should consider all the senses in the work you're doing. Yes, even taste. You'll hear more about that as we get into the episode. So why did I decide to refresh this one today? Well, the new episode this week is an interview with Dr. Siobhan McHale, author of the new book the Hive Mind at Work, which is about what organizations can learn about managing people and teams from, you guessed it, bees. And while it may be a bit of a stretch, Bees and Honey made me think of this episode on the sense of taste and why every business needs to be thoughtful about it. So I figured why not? Don't forget, there are links for my top related past episodes and books waiting for you in the show. Notes for this episode, which are found within the app you're listening to and@thebrain eat business.com 446. All right, let's talk about the sense of taste. Last week we talked about smell and as I said in that episode, smell and taste are very closely linked together. Both taste and smell use chemical receptors to the brain and our more primitive senses. And as I said last week, smell is directly tied to that emotional center of the brain and also closely bonded to our memories. Taste is not quite as strong in that department, but it still has more link than some of our other senses. And taste and smell are even more closely linked than most people realize, unless they have anosmia. What is anosmia, you ask? Anosmia is a condition where someone loses their sense of smell. It can be a result of head trauma or other conditions. Because of course all this interpretation happens in the brain and not in the sense where it first interacts with our bodies. Interestingly enough, between episodes here. So where the post on smell had already come out, the one on taste I had written or was writing and I looked and someone on LinkedIn had commented on my post and said that he was going to have a difficult time with that episode because he had fallen and hit his head in college, the back of his head, and said he completely lost his sense of smell. And so at this point he now doesn't remember what anything is really supposed to smell like. Which is just fascinating and a little bit interesting that I was writing about anosmia and looking it up when he commented on it. People who lose their sense of smell also lose the majority of their sense of taste. Why? Because taste. Get ready for this. This is crazy. Taste is actually 80% smell. Can you believe that 80% of taste is smell? I don't. I mean, crazy. You may have encountered some of this before. Like if you have tried to eat your favorite foods while you're sick with a stuffy nose and they don't taste as good. Or if you've ever tried to hold your nose to make a bad tasting food go down a little bit easier. This is why. But you can't ever completely get rid of it because there are those olfactory bulbs that bring in the molecules that help you disturb distinguish between the scents are also in the back of your throat. You know, they're throughout your nose all the way through and everything's all connected so you can't completely get rid of it. But they help you to distinguish between all the scents to help you have a better sense of what you're tasting and then tying memories and emotions to that particular food. And yes, the smell piece happens both before something enters your mouth and actually while you're chewing. You can still taste without smell, but the categories are very basic. Our tongues have 10,000 approximately taste buds that can basically distinguish between a few categories of flavor. Salty, sweet, sour, bitter and umami, which is one you might not be familiar with if you don't Watch the Food Network. It's sort of a savory flavor that's been added much more recently than the others. The tongue's taste receptors basically know if something is salty or sweet, but it can't tell the difference between the flavor of a tortilla chip or a pickle or a lemon and a lime. The nose is required for that. And here are some more fun tidbits about taste and our tongues. If you think back to elementary school, when you learned about taste and the different areas of the tongue that were most sensitive to those different flavors, like sweet at the tip of your tongue and bitter in the back, turns out that is all bogus and has been completely disproven. We can actually taste all flavors at any area of the tongue and some in the rest of our mouths as well. The taste sensation. Taste is actually the strongest around the edge of your tongue. So if you want to really taste something, try to get it around the edge instead of toward the middle of your tongue. Also, spicy is not a taste or a flavor. It's actually a pain receptor. So that is your tongue and taste bud saying, ouch, this hurts. And you sort of convert it into a flavor in your mind. And those little bumps you can see on your tongue, they are not your taste buds. Those are called fungiform papillae. And the taste buds are actually down in between those bumps. You can't see them at all, but they're covered in 50 to 100 taste receptor epithelial cells, each which respond to different molecules in the food you eat, much like the way that your nose takes in molecules of the food that's airborne. I've linked to a YouTube video with lots and lots of details about the whole process and how it works with lots of complex terms, but it's still very relatable if you want to check it out. Or you can just know that like our other senses, the tongue absorbs molecules from the foods we eat and sends a signal to the brain which then determines what category it falls into. Sweet, salty, bitter, sour, or umami. Anything more detailed than that is done simultaneously through the sense of smell and its olfactory bulb response into the limbic system. I feel like I said a bunch of big words in there, but hopefully you are still with me and we can move along into taste and how it impacts the brain and your business. Oh, one really cool last thing about taste. This sense is very good at helping us to stay healthy. If you remember back to last week when I told you that predators smell bad to us and prey or food smells good. Things that taste bad are often things that will make you sick. So drinking sour milk tastes bad, so you will spit it out and not let it get past your mouth and any further into your body than it needs to, which is pretty cool. There are lots of links of different articles and studies on tastes in the show notes if you want to check those out to know more about how all of that works. But for now, since you have some basic information about the tongue, taste, smell and how they all tie in with the brain, let's talk about mirror neurons. Yay. I have talked about mirror neurons a few times on the show in the past. These are basically what allow us to feel what others feel. For example, if you have ever seen someone get a paper cut and recoiled in pain and sort of felt it too, or watched someone stumble and fall off a stage and felt like you might fall as well, or seen someone smell or taste something and make a yucky face and it made you crinkle up your own nose in fear. Those are all because of your mirror neurons and they were partially discovered because of taste and our desires to eat food. Let me tell you a story. In 1991, on a particularly hot summer day in Italy, there was a monkey in a lab. It had some electrodes in its brain which it had been living with for some time, I hear, to test motor control and what areas in the brain would light up when the monkey would grab a cup or a peanut and then drink water or eat the peanut. This would allow scientists to understand how the brain lights up, what areas for various motor control actions and if it was different when the monkey grabbed a cup versus a block versus a peanut and things like that. So the intention behind the grasping motion, things like that. On this hot day, while the monkey was just hanging out in the lab, a research assistant walked in eating an ice cream cone. The monkey did not move and from the outside all that someone might have noticed would be its eyes getting a little bigger with interest in the ice cream. But the brain told a very different story. The monkey's brain was lighting up as if it was eating the ice cream cone itself. Its arm wasn't moving, but the brain lit up like it was and the researchers of course were amazed. This delicious ice cream on a hot day allowed them to accidentally discover mirror neurons, which had their first publication come out in 1994. Yes, this is cool and interesting in general, but it also has a giant impact on your business and branding even if you do not sell food items. I have two Brief examples for you? The first, if you remember, I said a word a little bit earlier. Just one, right? Can you remember it? I said the word yuck. So if you saw somebody smell something and make kind of a face, do you remember? And I don't know if this was international. I think it probably was just in the U.S. but I know when I was a kid, all the products that I should not be getting into underneath the kitchen sink, you know, cleaning products and things like that that would make me sick, had a very special sticker on them, a green face that was making a yuck face. His name was Mr. Yuck. That came out and was very, very effective on keeping small children that wouldn't be able to read sticker. But to know that they shouldn't have this particular item because of these mirror neurons and I because that would have come out before, that they didn't necessarily know why and how genius this was at the time. But Mr. Yuck was very impactful because even small children can recognize that type of a face and want to step away. And potentially that kind of a green yuck color also helped carry everything together. So this shows one way too, that the visual is very important to the sense of taste. And I'll get to that in a little bit as well. If you are not familiar with Mr. Yuck and would like to see a little bit more about that, there is a complimentary blog post@thebrainybusiness.com the next example. It's really common to try and use analogies in branding or messaging to try and be clever. For example, someone might be trying to promote a product with a lot of features and show someone eating a giant ice cream sundae. I recently had a client concerned about their direct mail campaign because some others were sending similar checking account mailers at the same time. One of them had a man eating a giant sandwich to showcase how robust their checking account was. The problem I told them at the time was that this mailer was more likely to make the viewer want to go and order a sandwich than to be interested in checking accounts. While analogies can be helpful and it's okay to be clever, sometimes using food and the sense of taste can quickly backfire on you because of mirror neurons. Seeing someone enjoying a tasty sandwich is more likely to make the viewer want to eat something than what you are intending to sell them. So be careful using food imagery in your branding. And if you are selling food, good news, you can trigger mirror neurons all the time and use them to your advantage. The brain can't really tell the difference between itself eating someone else, eating in the same room or on television. Except that some of the senses are a little bit inhibited until someone finally invents smell. Low vision. But does that matter? Yes. Studies have shown that taste relies on all the other senses to create a full experience. I've already talked about how smell is related to taste, but let's really dig into those other senses as well. As I said with Mr. Yuk, sight is important. If you've ever watched a tasting challenge on the Food Network or some other channel, you might know that being able to see the food makes a difference in someone's ability to comprehend what they are tasting. Without sight, someone might not know if they're tasting celery or a radish or a water chestnut. The expectation of what is coming to them impacts the taste. The brain is expecting something and projects that into that sense. I remember when I was in junior high, they came out with different colors of ketchup. Did you see this? It came in purple, blue, green, and it all just looked disgusting. You could potentially hear my voice. I can't even talk about it without sort of. My friend's little brothers got some and like to put it on their food, but it would completely change the experience of ketchup, and I couldn't possibly bring myself to eat it. But why? It's exactly the same thing, just a little food coloring. So why would it be perceived and taste so different? Some studies have shown that taste tests for orange juice varied based on color alone. So people said they preferred the taste of one orange juice over another because of the color, even though they were presumably exactly the same. This actually had more of an implication on taste than brand names. But don't worry, brands have a huge impact on taste, but I'll get to that in a minute. What about sound and touch? I know I'm getting into these in future episodes, but I'm going to talk about them a little bit here as well. Think about eating a potato chip or celery or popcorn if you can't hear the sound of chewing it. That satisfactory crunch, does it impact your perception of the taste? You bet it does. The crunch sends a message to your brain about freshness and can impact taste. Even an artificial crunch could aid in this, and they might include those on commercials like a laugh track to make you associate a certain food or brand with a crunchy sound. And using descriptive words like crunchy, crispy, or crackling can impact the expectation, which has a huge impact on taste. Lastly is touch which includes the feel in your hands as well as texture and temperature in your mouth. And these all impact taste. Something you think should be hot will taste different if it's cold. And think about the reverse. A soda that's been sitting in the sun doesn't taste the same. Personally, I am all about texture. Tiramisu is a dessert I just can't get behind. Soggy food is a big no no in my book, and I don't eat cereal all that often. But I'm one of those people who will pour in the milk first and then add a little bit of cereal at a time so I can eat in small doses before it gets soggy. I know I'm a little bit weird, but I'm okay with it. When it comes to taste, all the senses are involved and a lot of because of the brain on previous episodes I've talked about the power of expectations. Our brains get what they expect when presented with two different coffee stands. For example, the ambiance impacted perceived flavor and the amount someone was willing to pay. In one case, the setup was very bottom of the barrel. Think gas station coffee, Styrofoam cups, kind of a dirty environment. Plain cream and sugar, nothing fancy. In the other scenario, there were nice cups, an assortment of mix ins including cinnamon and nutmeg, and a very clean environment. The coffee was of course exactly the same in both scenarios, but which one did people say tasted better? That's right, the one that looked better. Don't judge a book by its cover. Unfortunately we do every day. Which is one more reason that brands matter. How about another study which looked into adding flavor enhancers in beer on a college campus? The researchers went to a campus bar and gave out free beer to students who of course proved they were of age and able to be in the bar with a special flavor enhancer in it. Did the perception of the flavor make a difference if they knew in advance what the special flavor was? Absolutely. Those who tried the beer with the special edition tended to like it and then would ask for a glass of the special one instead of the regular when able to choose their free drink. And this is a case where they don't know what the add in is, they just know that there is one. When students were told after the taste test what the strange additive was, they had already formed an opinion and knew they liked it. And so many still chose to have the one with the additive if they had declared an affinity for it before knowing what was in it. So scenario A is you try the two drinks the beer without beer with. And most people actually liked the one with the add in. And some of them weren't told at all what was in it. Scenario two, you tried them both. They told you what the add in was and then you chose which one you wanted. And in scenario three, the tasters were told in advance what the additive was and then still had to taste both drinks. And almost everyone hated the drink in that scenario with the add in and said it tasted terrible. It was all the same additive in the same proportion. But the expectations changed. The perceived flavor. You might be wondering what that additive is. And I waited until we got to the end to tell you so you could hear all the scenarios. It was balsamic vinegar. Do you want that? Think back on the same scenarios there. How would that impact the flavor in your mind? If you were told in advance that somebody had laced your drink with balsamic vinegar, would you be excited to taste it? Are you maybe making a yuck? Are you looking like a Mr. Yuck sticker right now? I'm not sure. One trick I used to play on my friends when I was in high school, I guess I was always cut out for this brainy profession was to have them close their eyes and I would tell them they're going to take a sip of milk. We'd talk a little about milk and I would do what I could to get them really prepped for a big swig of it. And then I would hand them the glass and they would take a big sip and basically die when they took a sip of orange juice. The flavor was completely compromised by expecting to take a sip of milk. And instead it would create this sort of perceived curdled effect that would make pretty much anybody want to spit out the juice even though it was perfectly good. You can feel free to test this on your friends and family or kids if they're being pranksters. I won't tell. So we know taste is greatly impacted by all the senses. Eating a big tub of popcorn at the movies wouldn't be the same without the smell. The warmth in your hands where you can feel the grains of salt and the butter against your fingers as you lift a light fluffy kernel. And hear and feel the crunch as you bite down on each delicious bite. What if all those other senses were removed? It wouldn't be as delectable of an experience for sure. And did you get hungry when I described that? It's because that is the power of taste and sense memory on your brain. It's like you're eating it and you can Remember all those feelings, the smells, the experience, even just from words. Images help and so does sound and smell. Of course, when it comes to advertising, the taste of something, incorporate all the senses if you can. And what about the value of brands? How does that impact taste? Think about the Pepsi challenge where people did a blind taste test of sodas back in the 70s and 80s and more than 50% don't know the exact percentage there, but more than 50% chose Pepsi, even though Coke has a significantly larger market share and did at that time as well. Turning those blind taste tests into commercials got some people to consider Pepsi, but perhaps they didn't do enough to really solidify that. They gained some traction for a while, but they couldn't fully break the habit of Coke. Check out episodes 21 and 22 for more information on habits. One unfortunate consequence that came from this was Coke sort of looking at this benefit of Pepsi and thinking that they needed to make a change in order to compete. This sort of shiny object syndrome. This spawned the infamous new Coke nightmare, which if you have ever taken a business class, you've probably heard about. And it was a huge fail for Coke. It resulted in 400,000 complaint letters from their customers. Yikes. This is a lesson of course in understanding your brand and your value and sticking with what people like about you. This is why you need to do your research. Of course Coke recovered by bringing back Coke in its new classic form and regained its place at the top of the soda chain. So what do studies show is going on now that we have fancy FMRI machines and can see how the brain reacts in a blind taste? The brain will light up in a certain way because Pepsi's sweeter and most people tend to choose it in the test. When someone is told they're going to taste Coke and then take a sip, completely different parts of their brain light up. The processing is different and in the thinking and emotional parts of the brain, you can see this power of brand on the perception and that people actually like it better when they know it's Coke. And of course this brand power impact more than just flavors. The brain has expectations for everything. Remember, vision is different than sight as I talked about on episode 24, because vision is created in the brain's expectations. Everything we see and experience in life is based on past experiences and expectations. And brands are a big part of that. The words you choose, images, smells, flavors, sounds and everything else matters. And like I've said in the Truth about pricing, it's not about the cookie priming matters. It can impact everything and it impacts your business, branding and messaging. Everything leading up to the interactions with your brand matters more than what you're selling, the price and the taste if you have one. So always, always please be strategic and thoughtful in everything you do. So what got your brain buzzing as you learned about the sense of taste today? For me, I always think it's fascinating to know that so much of taste is actually smell, so knowing how much our senses overlap is a big deal in understanding our experiences. Also, while I hadn't yet discovered the field of cognitive semiotics when I did this original episode so it wasn't called out by name here in this episode today, metaphors are so important in our experience. Did you know that research shows we don't just use metaphors for fun, colorful language, but we actually think in metaphor. And beyond that, every 20th to 25th word we say is a metaphor. When it comes to taste, it may seem like it doesn't apply. But even saying someone has good taste in a brand or their clothing, or in choosing people to connect with, they aren't actually tasting any of those things. But you know what it means. Our senses are impacting our experiences all day, every day, whether we realize it or think they should. So why not consider how they all can apply into your business? The answers may surprise you. What sort of unconventional ways have you found to tie taste or any of the other senses back to your business? Come share it with me on social media. I'd love to hear about it. You'll find me as the brainy biz pretty much everywhere and as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. As we close out the show, don't forget about those show notes with links to my top related past episodes, books and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and@thebrainybusiness.com 446 and just like that, episode 446 on Taste is done. Join me Friday for a brand new episode with Dr. Siobhan McHale discussing her new book, the Hive Mind at Work. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me. And remember to be thoughtful. Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.