Empathy and Experiment: Applying Consumer Science to Whole Grains as Foods

Abstract

SUMMARY In a world of plenty, getting consumers to buy and eat “good for you” foods, such as those containing whole grains, can become problematic, especially when the alternatives are inexpensive, tasty, and less nutritious products. As a society we are becoming increasingly accustomed to what tastes good and is affordable, rather than to what is good but perhaps slightly less tasty and perhaps more expensive.. In this age of plenty convincing consumers to purchase and use whole grain requires two types of knowledge about consumer motivations. The first is the understanding of what drives consumers in terms of basic needs. The second is the messaging we use to convince. For the first part—understanding—we present a structured system which takes into account a deep, psychodynamic understanding of consumers using the so-called “5 Keys approach,” inspired by a melange of therapeutic techniques, predominantly: cognitive behavior therapy (Aaron T. Beck), self psychology (Heinz Kohut), and analytical psychology (Carl Jung). The 5 Keys approach ends up being the softscience part of a binary approach, to be followed by the hard-science part—experimentation. For the second part—convincing—we must uncover messages which are grounded in understanding and which convince. We discover the convincing messages through structured experimentation, beginning with messaging about people, products, situations, and emotions. The experiments create the test messages, acquire ratings of interest, and identify clearly what’s working. The combination of empathy (insight development about the person) and experimentation (what’s working), along with segmentation (how people differ), produce a corpus of knowledge and immediate direction that can be used to enhance the consumption of whole grain foods.