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Expensive Wine Is Not Always Better
by
findingDulcinea Staff
A mediocre wine is more likely to be enjoyed if it costs a lot, according to a recent study. Shoppers are often drawn to high prices.
30-Second Summary
Researchers from the California Institute of Technology used brain imaging to prove a higher price makes wine more enjoyable. Participants in the test enjoyed a sample wine more when they were told it cost $90 than when the alleged price was only $10.
“People's beliefs about the quality of a wine affect how well it tastes for the brain,” said Antonio Rangel, who headed the experiment.
An article in ScienceNOW called this the “placebo effect” of marketing. Placebo drugs are dummy medications that produce positive effects in patients through the power of belief.
In a similar way, companies can sometimes persuade consumers that their products are good just by jacking up their prices.
However, not everyone has lost faith in the power of taste. One commentator quoted by the BBC said that the participants may have responded differently had they been paying for the wine. Not everyone enjoys a pricey product more than a more affordable version.
Factors such as a consumer’s knowledge of the product, personality type and cultural background may affect how they respond to marketing techniques, some experts argued.
“People's beliefs about the quality of a wine affect how well it tastes for the brain,” said Antonio Rangel, who headed the experiment.
An article in ScienceNOW called this the “placebo effect” of marketing. Placebo drugs are dummy medications that produce positive effects in patients through the power of belief.
In a similar way, companies can sometimes persuade consumers that their products are good just by jacking up their prices.
However, not everyone has lost faith in the power of taste. One commentator quoted by the BBC said that the participants may have responded differently had they been paying for the wine. Not everyone enjoys a pricey product more than a more affordable version.
Factors such as a consumer’s knowledge of the product, personality type and cultural background may affect how they respond to marketing techniques, some experts argued.
Headline: Pleasure is paying through the nose
Researchers from the California Institute of Technology recorded their subjects’ impressions as well as their brain activity after giving them different kinds of wine. The only information the subjects were provided with was the price of the wines. “People's beliefs about the quality of a wine affect how well it tastes for the brain,” said Antonio Rangel, who headed the experiment.
Source: Discovery Channel
A study by California Institute of Technology researchers shows that satisfaction with a product is not derived solely from its intrinsic qualities. When calculating pleasure, the human brain takes into account a consumer’s beliefs about what makes a product good, the researchers reported.
Source: The Associated Press
Reactions: Weighing the study’s results
An article in The Times of London quoted experts who are skeptical of the Cal Tech group’s findings. They pointed out that the participants in the test did not foot the bill for the wine they drank; had they been paying, they might not have enjoyed their drink so much. Neuroeconomics researcher Scott Rick said that not everyone enjoys a more expensive product just because it is more expensive. “There are people who derive pleasure from spending, and those for whom it is painful,” he said.
Source: The Times
Consumers have similar responses to other “prestige products,” such as cars, fashion accessories and clothing, Oliver Johnson, CEO of the UK-based Wine Society, told the BBC. He referred to the study that found consumers enjoy expensive wine more than cheaper varieties. “In this case, the volunteers appeared to have been associating the price of the wine with prestige—they were expecting it to be a good vintage, with a good label, even though they didn't have that information,” Johnson told the BBC. Wine expert Jancis Robinson suggested that the study’s findings may be valid for the United States only, where people definitely associate price with quality. A sommelier at a high-end California restaurant could not sell wine that was priced at under $100 a bottle. He increased the sales of the same wine when he raised its price to more than $100, Robinson said.
Source: The BBC
Opinion & Analysis: The power of marketing
Expensive doesn’t always mean better, according to findings by researchers from the California Institute of Technology, Forbes reported. The wine study is an instance of successful “neuromarketing,” or “the ability to manipulate basic biology to increase perceived pleasure,” the researchers told Forbes. Susan Linn, who teaches psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, said studies like Cal Tech group’s are “troubling,” because they help marketers “trump our senses.” She added that “studies like this suggest that, in fact, there are lots of things that influence our responses to marketing and our choices of products that are completely irrational that we might not be aware of."
Source: Forbes
An article in ScienceNOW stated that marketing techniques, such as pricing, may produce a placebo effect in consumers. In other words, consumers enjoy products because they believe they are good, or effective, not because the products are really that good.
“We think that the effect is driven by expectations,” said Rangel.
“We think that the effect is driven by expectations,” said Rangel.
Source: ScienceNOW
Related Topic: The placebo effect
The placebo effect refers to a phenomenon still disputed among medical experts. However, patients have reported improvements after being treated with dummy drugs. These improvements are referred to as “the placebo effect”; the fake drugs worked only because patients believed them effective. Defenders of the placebo effect claim that human beings often react on the basis of expectations, and not solely based on the intrinsic qualities of what they consume.
Source: The BBC
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