Nutrition – Why Consumers buy Mega-Brand Name Food Even
when they know it’s not Nutritious
April 17th, 2006
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Why do we still buy big brand name foods that we know are bad for us?
According to James Tillotson, PhD, MBA, professor at the Friedman School
of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University said the reason why
big brand names survive, “mega-brands maintain their strong grip on our
diet because consumers, food companies, and supermarkets are intertwined
in a symbiotic relationship that yields great benefits for all three.”
Tillotson has a two-part series in his Business and Nutrition column in
Nutrition Today who looks at the brand name products and refers to them as
“fortress brands” because they are hard for competitors to take their
market share.
“In spite of a deluge of popular press coverage in recent years about
pros and cons of following the Dietary Guideline recommendations,
consumer surveys continue to report that taste still trumps all other
rationales in motivating food purchases by catering to our strong liking
for sweets, fats and oils, and salt,” Tillotson wrote in his column.
Tillotson believes that the supermarkets help in brand name marketing to
consumers. He attributes the economics of profit to the methods that
the grocery store will use to sell products. Because profit margins can
be barely anything, shelf space is limited; the grocery store will try
to make as much profit as they can. The name brands are recognized,
will sell faster and make more profit. The unknown brand that may be
less expensive may not sell as fast and also would not make as much
profit. That is why the grocery store is so important for the success
of big brand name products.
“Their greater profitability (versus the lesser brands) is the result
not only of their commanding market shares and higher sales volumes, but
also their larger profit margins,” said Tillotson. “Mega-brands are
inherently the most-wanted by consumers, so supermarkets must have them
to sell. Brand preferences are often passed from grandparents to parents
to children and are deeply ingrained in our eating culture.”
Nutrition may not be the focus of the brand name product as the bottom
line is profitability. The FDA rules for food manufacturers have
improved some of the quality of the foods out in the marketplace.
Recently the FDA has requested proper labeling for whole grain foods,
and also to list Trans-fats in their product. This has led quite a few
big brand companies to change their products and use these healthier
preparations as part of their marketing campaign.
“Mega-brands offer consumers a time-proven guarantee to deliver repeated
satisfaction and quality, and importantly even more than the sum of
great taste, convenience, and price, they offer compelling associations,
emotional and psychological product inducements. These products are
marketed by well-funded, highly professional organizations. The Dietary
Guidelines are long on lecturing what to eat, but short on telling how
and limiting in their motivation,” stated Tillotson in his column.
“Without the same marketing attributes, strategy and budget, how can the
Dietary Guidelines compete?”
Nicole Wilson
Best Syndication
Books on Healthy Food at Amazon
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