MAKING INSECTS MATTER: FOOD MATTERS LIVE
Eleanor Heather, Senior Behavioural Strategist at Ogilvy Change
As you may know, we have worked closely with the company Eat Grub for several years now. Together we have applied behavioural science to help promote their insect-based snacks, our aim being to establish insects as a valid and desirable food source (find out more about our work together here).
We are again collaborating with Eat Grubs at this year’s Food Matters Live conference, and you’re all welcome to join us!
This week from Tuesday 21st to Thursday 23rd we’ll be exploring the psychology of choice and how it relates to entomology. Check out Food Matters Live for more information – it’s set to be an amazing few days of all things food (and psych of course!).
So given our upcoming event, I thought I’d share a new paper examining how context and image provision influences risk perceptions and choice intent of insect-based food products.
Baker, Shin & Kim (2016) conducted a series of experiments to better understand how the (i) choice location (ii) imagery and (ii) description used influenced consumers’ risk perceptions of edible insects.
As we’re all aware a myriad of factors influence our food purchases: the relative price; how hungry we are; who we’re with; the effort involved in accessing said food; cultural associations and norms (see e.g. Drake & Chung, 2005; Hollands et al, 2013; Spence, 2015; Delwiche, 2012;Wang, 2013).
And as Baker, Shin & Kim illustrate, a food’s visual appearance can significantly affect a consumer’s likelihood of trying it. Equally, the context in which the food is presented influences how and what information consumers evaluate: the same product description in a restaurant setting may not provoke the same appeal in a store setting. Yet such factors are still under explored in relation to more novel food types, like insects.
In the study, the authors tested whether (i) ambiguous or transparent imagery and descriptions were more effective at driving purchase intent and (ii) the context of the choice mattered. Specifically, they examined: (i) image of insect vs image of processed insect powder; common insect name vs scientific insect name (ii) retail vs restaurant setting. They looked firstly at the impact on risk perceptions, and secondly how risk perceptions then impacted purchase intent.
The potential ‘risks’ from eating insects are worth considering for a moment. Firstly, given their still relative novelty, there is the risk of the sensory experience, and taste being inferior to an alternative (functional risk). There is also the potential for consumers to perceive a physical risk to their health, given our western association of disease-bearing insects. Alternatively, when considered within a social context, there is the risk of ego-damage if the insect product is not viewed positively within a given social group (social risk), or if it does not marry up to our own self-image (psychological risk).
Unsurprisingly the study found risk perceptions were significantly affected by the image and description used to market the insect products. And, that heightened risk led to lower purchase intent.
However, and rather interestingly only psychological and functional risk were significantly affected in both settings. Moreover, images of actual vs processed insects had a significant and negative impact only when used within the retail setting. In the restaurant setting, only the item description affected risk and purchase intent. In both settings, the more ambiguous the marketing (i.e. processed powder + scientific name), the greater the purchase intent. Arguably because the negative connotations of insects were not so acutely activated.
Although the study was conducted within an artificial environment, it does add valuable insights into how best to market novel foods like insects. If you want to help increase the evidence base, why not venture to Food Matters Live this week and see what influences your choice?
