Children actually think that food tastes better if it carries a major brand logo or an image of a popular cartoon character

Tuesday, April 01, 2014 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer
Tags: advertising, cartoon characters, children

(NaturalNews) Fast food companies don't pour all that money into marketing their products to children for nothing. Studies confirm that kids don't just have an emotional preference for branded food: they actually think it tastes better.

In one study, conducted in 2007, children were presented with a choice between identical samples of baby carrots, chicken nuggets, French fries, hamburgers and milk. The nuggets, burgers and fries came from McDonald's, while the other foods did not, but the children were presented each food item both in a plain wrapper and in one bearing a McDonald's logo.

Overwhelmingly, children reported that the branded food tasted better.

In 2010, researchers performed a similar study on baby carrots, graham crackers and gummy fruit in either plain wrappers or wrappers decorated with well-known cartoon characters.

Once again, children thought that the same food tasted better if it had a recognizable icon on the wrapper. The only difference: cartoons had no effect on the taste of carrots.

Sources:

http://news.stanford.edu

http://www.naturalnews.com