George ILIEV
If something looks unfamiliar, it does not get eaten. Animals avoid eating unfamiliar berries or insects for two reasons: "dietary wariness" (fear of eating something poisonous) and "apostatic predation" (difficulty to spot prey that looks too different).
Humans in the supermarket do not need to worry about poisonous berries or insects, though high fat or sugar content may be almost equally undesirable characteristics of a food product. On the other hand, apostatic predation is something consumers often fall victim to, e.g. when unsuccessfully hunting for a familiar product whose package has been changed by the manufacturer.
This is where advertising steps in: by creating awareness for a cereal product, a commercial makes it both acceptable (i.e. reassuring that it is not harmful) and easy to spot among the packages of fried crickets and roasted beetles that British supermarkets regularly stock up. Looking too different and unfamiliar would help a package of cornflakes hang on to the supermarket shelf not for the love of marketing but for evolutionary reasons.
"Some children are more genetically susceptible than others to avoid new foods", a UNC-Chapel Hill study published in the journal Obesity says. The aversion to trying new foods is called food neophobia.
ReplyDeleteGenes May Be Reason Some Kids Are Picky About Food
Mar. 21, 2013
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130321082934.htm
Why Our Brains Crave Storytelling In Marketing
ReplyDeleteOur greedy little brains are hungry for a good story, so if you want to make the sale, forget the data and make a personal connection.
https://www.fastcompany.com/3031419/why-our-brains-crave-storytelling-in-marketing