“If you want to sell coffee, it’s best to use descriptions with full sentences,” says language and scent expert Ilja Croijmans. “So not just ‘chocolate’ or ‘honey’, but ‘an interesting coffee with a chocolate and honey aroma’.”
Together with psychologist Bente Klein Hazebroek from Utrecht University, Croijmans studied the effect of coffee descriptions on consumer behaviour. They found that people are willing to pay more for coffee with concrete descriptions that refer to things they’ve tasted before, like grapefruit or caramel. These descriptions are more effective than abstract terms like ‘bitter’ or ‘sweet’.
Consumers were least convinced by descriptions containing an opinion, such as ‘tasty coffee’. “This is because we understand language better when it activates memories of previous experiences,” explains Croijmans. “When you read a description, you are in a way ‘simulating’ what you would taste and smell. This simulation process is harder to achieve with only one word, like ‘apple’, because you don’t know which aspect of ‘apple’ you’re supposed to activate. When you hear ‘It tastes of apple’, you already know more.”
Smell simulation
With these insights, the researchers hope to contribute to a better understanding of how language can drive behaviour. “We actually still don’t understand exactly how people make sense of what they read,” says ‘Croijmans. “Simulation seems to play an important role in this process, also in scent and taste descriptions. Now that we increasingly do our shopping online, we also obtain information about products from their descriptions, rather than from physically following smells at the market. The way in which these smells and tastes are described can determine our choices.”
Together with a group of students, Croijmans is launching a study on descriptions of beer. “You could perhaps make alcohol-free beer more attractive by using more simulation in the product descriptions.”
Read the article ‘Let’s talk over coffee: exploring the effect of coffee flavour descriptions on consumer imagery and behaviour’ here.
Photo: Claro Cafe via Pexels