Buying the Experience, Not the Food

Have you ever purchased a food item because it "looked pretty" or because it had an interesting back story that would make eating it fun? Well, this choice in purchase is what we are going to talk about today and how all of the articles that I read this week were connected.

When you look at a bright orange nacho cheese Dorito, you see the flavor dust coating on the triangle shaped corn chip, and you probably think: "Wow, delicious, I can't wait to eat it". But, what you don't know is that there is a specific experience that you are buying by picking those Doritos over another snack on the grocery store shelf. Doritos are chemically flavored to induce nostalgia and they use flavors like garlic and authentic cheese to do so. By including these fundamental flavors, Doritos are supposed to remind the eater of their childhood. The finger licking experience is something else that is also included in the package. Some people actually buy the bag of Doritos to lick their fingers. The huge boost of umami flavor that hits the eater when they lick their fingers triggers receptors on the tongue to send out neurotransmitters to the brain that release dopamine, the happiness hormone.

Another type of food that we often purchase for the overall experience is "mystery" labeled foods. Because the flavor inside the packaged food is unknown, the guessing game is often times the fun part of buying a food called mystery. An example of this was the huge Oreo challenge that was going on around a few years ago. If the flavor was guessed correctly, the person would get a huge sum of money. Buying these Oreos was less so for the taste, but for the fun experience that guessing and consuming the Oreos would be. In this way, psychologists who work with large food brands are doing their job extremely well. They know that the human mind often times tilt towards foods that are not only delicious, but also come with a fun activity.

The "experience" phenomena can also be seen in trendy foods these days. Items such as charcoal ice cream and syringe syrup injectors are super pretty to look at, but cost a lot of extra money. By paying the extra money for the gorgeous and instagrammable foods, you are buying the social media experience. This psychology is also used by many food producers, because the trendier and prettier their product looks, the more likely they are to generate revenue from people buying it for the "experience".

Finally, this concept can also be seen negatively with processed foods trying to mock the original. The process of how something is made can often be used as a marketing strategy. For example, buying organic milk over regular milk: the organic milk can also be seen as buying the fancier and healthier production experience regardless of if the two products taste the same. When my dad buys wine, he is also purchasing the process of how it is created. He says that when he drinks the wine, he can taste the wooden barrel that it was fermented in, or the smokiness of the grape. He spends so much money buying wine for this reason, and a cheaper chemical alternative wouldn't make the buyers who buy for the process happy.

Next time you pick up something at the grocery store, think about the psychologists who help market the item. Are they marketing for taste or experience? And should you even pick up the product if it isn't going to be fun to consume? Consider whether you are a taste buyer or an experience buyer, or perhaps a little bit of both!