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The article mentions something that always fascinates me: the extent to which branding and presentation influence taste perception: "As complaints got louder,

The article mentions something that always fascinates me: the extent to which branding and presentation influence taste perception: "As complaints got louder, this became more obvious. Domino’s ran consumer tests and discovered that people actually liked pizza less if they knew it was Domino’s than if they thought it was a random unbranded pizza." They 100% absolutely did start using better ingredients, etc. but if they'd failed to rehab their brand I wonder if it would have taken off.

deleted 9y ago
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debacle 9y ago
I was just talking with my wife about this the other day. I've had Domino's a few times in the last ~2 years, and it's okay pizza, but I would never go out of my way to purchase Domino's pizza.
otakucode 9y ago
It's not 'taste perception' that is affected. It's literally taste. People aren't lying or tricking themselves, the pizza literally tasted worse if they knew it was Dominos in those studies. They've done similar studies with wine. They took professional sommeliers and gave them cheap wine in bottles with expensive labels, and expensive wine in bottles with cheap labels, and had them try them while lying in fMRI scanners. The bottle it came out of had monumental effects on the taste centers of the brain. The book 'How Pleasure Works' goes over a lot of this sort of research and is quite interesting. The 'American Association of Wine Economists' (which isn't what it sounds like) also does tons of research on things like this. It's thanks to them we know that people can't actually tell the difference between expensive patte and wet dog food.
- ctrl-j 9y ago
  Just out of curiosity, what do you think taste perception means in this context?
  - otakucode 9y ago
    Taste perception would be "I like this, it tastes good", the opinion the person has of their taste experience. The taste itself is the actual experience. It's the taste itself that is very heavily determined by context and unrelated to objective reality.

deleted 9y ago

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debacle 9y ago

I was just talking with my wife about this the other day. I've had Domino's a few times in the last ~2 years, and it's okay pizza, but I would never go out of my way to purchase Domino's pizza.

otakucode 9y ago

It's not 'taste perception' that is affected. It's literally taste. People aren't lying or tricking themselves, the pizza literally tasted worse if they knew it was Dominos in those studies. They've done similar studies with wine. They took professional sommeliers and gave them cheap wine in bottles with expensive labels, and expensive wine in bottles with cheap labels, and had them try them while lying in fMRI scanners. The bottle it came out of had monumental effects on the taste centers of the brain. The book 'How Pleasure Works' goes over a lot of this sort of research and is quite interesting. The 'American Association of Wine Economists' (which isn't what it sounds like) also does tons of research on things like this. It's thanks to them we know that people can't actually tell the difference between expensive patte and wet dog food.

ctrl-j 9y ago
Just out of curiosity, what do you think taste perception means in this context?
- otakucode 9y ago
  Taste perception would be "I like this, it tastes good", the opinion the person has of their taste experience. The taste itself is the actual experience. It's the taste itself that is very heavily determined by context and unrelated to objective reality.