03/09/2011 If you haven't already caught this story, I'll get you up to speed.
Young children say they like the taste of a breakfast cereal more when there's a popular cartoon character on the box. However, if the box has no characters, they indicate a preference for a cereal labelled 'Healthy Bits' over the exact same cereal when it's called 'Sugar Bits'.
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania studied 80 children between the ages of 4 and 6 at a shopping centre in the north-east of the USA (published in the March issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine).
The results showed that children who saw a popular media character on the box reported liking the cereal more than those who viewed a box with no character on it. Those who were told the cereal was named Healthy Bits liked the taste more than children who were told it was named Sugar Bits. Character presence was particularly influential on taste assessments for participants who were told the cereal was named Sugar Bits.
The conclusions that can be made from this is that the use of media characters on food packaging affects children's subjective taste assessment. Messages encouraging healthy eating may resonate with young children, but the presence of licensed characters on packaging potentially overrides children's assessments of nutritional merit.
It's not really new news, but demonstrates how easily we can be influenced by graphic design. In my mind the children are just a marker for how we all respond to the designed elements that surround us. Every product tries to find a common ground with its selected audience in an effort to win their trust. This may be as blatant as a famous sportsman's promotion or as subtle as the shape given to an armchair. We all feel drawn to what resonates with us. It wins our trust and we feel free to purchase.
These same techniques have been employed long before breakfast cereal existed. Renaissance painters often inserted well know faces into their paintings, the only difference was that they were selling the stories of the church.
Design influences us all – we know that – and we may not always need to spend all our budget on research to confirm known information. Just make sure all of your design talks to your market group on their level.
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