What does branding taste like? Simply Good Foods explored their own ‘brand taste’ to uncover the consumer psychology behind this common-yet-strange effect

Do you know what your brand tastes like? Simply Good Foods and Curion partnered to explore this question on products in the “better for you” and traditional snack categories. By manipulating brand information, the research aimed to assess consumers’ preferences and perceptions. Participants were first exposed to products without brand identification, allowing for unbiased evaluation of intrinsic qualities. Subsequently the same consumers evaluated the products with the brand elements introduced, decoding the impact of branding on consumer acceptance – aka the taste of the brand! The findings shed light on the intricate relationship between product attributes and brand influence and how consumers incorporate contextual information when drawing conclusions about product preference. So…how does your own brand taste?

Key Takeaways:

1. The taste of your product is influenced both by product characteristics and contextual information, such as brand.
2. By using the tools of psychology and sensory science we can disentangle the impact of brand from other aspects of the product.
3. Both blind and branded product evaluations provide useful information for brand owners and researchers to optimize the characteristics of their products.