Lonely people are more likely to buy KFC because it has a FACE on the packaging, claim boffins
BEFORE reaching for that bargain bucket, you might want to call a friend.
Scientists claim that lonely people are more likely to buy food or products that have human faces on them in order to fill a social void.
That means the likes of McDonald's Ronald and KFC's Colonel Sanders are more of a temptation when you haven't been around your pals for some time.
University of Oregon's marketing head Professor Bettina Cornwell said she hates crisps, but found herself considering a bag while travelling alone in France.
Thinking about how much she missed her family, she reached for a packet emblazoned with a smiley face.
"I asked myself: What was so compelling about that particular bag of chips? Why did I almost purchase something I actually dislike?"
Cornwell enlisted the help of academics Ulrich Orth, Jana Ohlhoff and Christiane Naber to find out.
Their findings, published this week in the E, suggests that loners find brands with human faces more appealing
That means fast food spots like KFC or popular brands like Coco Pops, Rice Crispies or Kinder Bueno might seem even tastier if you haven't hung out with pals in a while.
"Visuals can fill a void for consumers experiencing a lack of social connection,” Cornwell said.
“When people see faces in branding materials, their likeability for that brand goes up.”
When humans lack social connections, they often attempt to fill the void in other ways, including through their purchasing habits.
“Previous research linked our need for social connection with consumer behaviour and judgment, but very little was understood about the role that visuals play in social connection and brand likeability,” Orth explained.
“Our study builds on prior research by demonstrating that seeing a face in a brand visual increases a consumer’s liking of the brand, especially if they feel lonely.”
The researchers carried out several tests to prove their hypothesis.
In one instance, they created 18 fake brands and slogans with "non-face" and "face" images.
Participants were asked to answer questions about the brand, the images, and themselves.
More people warmed to the brands with faces in them when they were lonely.
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We often imagine human-like characteristics in non-human pictures, a process that is also known as anthropomorphism.
Loneliness can enhance people’s tendency to exhibit this kind of “wishful seeing” and is most apparent in the case of faces.
The researchers took 45 different labels and ranked them on a scale of one to seven based on how clearly a face could be detected in the brand’s imagery.
They also controlled for measures like familiarity and personal wine preference and found, again, that people who had less social interaction were more likely to pick up a bottle with human features on the label.
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