
07 May 2015 Buy plonk, your friends won’t know the difference!
It may sound far-fetched, but a study in the Journal of Marketing Research has shown that preconceptions of price can actually change the chemistry of the brain so that drinkers enjoy plonk in the same way they would a more expensive bottle.
In an experiment that involved test subjects having their brains scanned while drinking what they were told were five different wines of different prices, researchers found that the drinkers’ brains showed they enjoyed the most expensive wines more.
In reality, the subjects were just drinking three different wines, which cost two different prices – they just enjoyed the wine more when they thought it was from an expensive, ‘nice’ bottle.
The study shows just how strong marketing placebo effects (MPEs) can be when used on consumers – our brains can actually experience very different products in similar ways, depending on how they are marketed.
The authors of the study, Hilke Plassman, a cognitive neuroscientist, and Bernd Weber, Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Bonn, found that reward-seeking people with low awareness of their physical senses and a high need for cognition were more likely to be influenced by MPEs.
The study to adds the case against the wine-tasting industry. Numerous tests into the capabilities of wine tasters and drinkers have been conducted over the years, many of which show that experts are often swayed by their preconceptions of what the wine will be like.
The Independent, read the full article
Journal Reference:
Hilke Plassmann and Bernd Weber: Individual Differences in Marketing Placebo Effects: Evidence from Brain Imaging and Behavioral Experiments. Journal of Marketing Research In-Press.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/jmr.13.0613
Related reading:
Wine-tasting: it’s junk science