Spaghetti Sauce Study Changed How Food Makers Give Us Choices - A Business Lesson
 

This is a fascinating video on how a spaghetti study has led to the millions of food choices we have today.

Pay attention, heck fast forward to the 6:20 mark, and see how a Harvard Genius revolutionized the food industry. Notice how when you go to buy Ranch Dressing you are confronted with 600 different options? Its because of the guy talked about in this video.


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Dealing with people's consumption and buying habits is an absolute blast. It is true that people don't really know what the hell they want. You have to be able to gather data and read between the lines. People don't know what they don't know at the end of the day.

It also touches on classic business stupidity. You see it with big companies but unfortunately it is the doom of many many smaller companies. They work so hard on their product, service, or business with assumptions they just don't know to be true. I remember in my serving days people have all these little quirks with how they like their food but they always think "their way is the normal way" which is fine if what you think of as a medium steak is medium rare we can throw it back on the grill but when you make those conclusions without knowledge in business it can be bad.

The way things are presented changes everything. Stuff that seems really simple like price anchoring. If I want to sell a 7 dollar burger it could be a challenge. Someone walks in and looks at a 7 dollar burger and says JFC no way. But it is my target I need people to buy this. So I put a 10 dollar burger on. People go JFC a 10 dollar burger no way...lets get the 7 dollar one. Not as big a deal. Bam I make the transaction I need and every now and then someone does want a 10 dollar burger. Money in the till.

Stuff like this is interesting as hell

I love TED. Thanks for posting...

Rep for linking a TED talk which is awesome.

Yeah I hadn't seen that one before, but I like it a lot. Really I like anything that points out how faulty a typical persons perceptions are, even with something so simple and subjective as what flavors they like. This is why we have the scientific method, and more and more we are learning that it applies to everything, even something as unlikely as the flavor of spaghetti sauce.

Whenever someone asks for a book recommendation, I tell them to start reading his books... I'm trying to find time to finish his latest, What the Dog Saw. It really is fascinating stuff, and I really enjoy his research & storytelling on marketing and education.

Very interesting. It's amazing how the simplest ideas can change so much.

Great video. Its a lost art in purchasing in today's retail. There's a published study....sorry no link... take it for what you will. But for every person that asks for it... there are 2 others that want it but wont ask for it. Regardless what it is. Simple study of human behavior that corporations spend millions of dollars in and never understand because its so simple.

Saw Al gore floating in the preview.

Why are the people laughing. None of that is funny.

Eh, I disagree he was setting up a story and making points through the eyes of a quirky professor. Showing his stubborn point of view and how he interpreted things. It was funny.

sure it is.. as a consumer... you are simple. stimulate any 2 of the senses and you are hooked. simple understanding of the mind.

True, the story is funny because of how simple his conclusion is. His delivery of it is good, but the fro takes it too another level.

Howards solution had little to do with the scientific method and everything to do with common sense. The studies he did were more of a tool to translate his common sense approach.

Fro power.

Froactive.

Fropocolypse