The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

Though a bit long in length, this article speaks to come concepts we have covered in marketing. Assigned in a class I took outside of the Hotel School, this article emphasizes the power of marketing when discussing the desire to change consumers views of health food while presenting the detrimental success of many junk food company's ability to create both a scientific and consumer desire for their unhealthy products. This is discussed in comparing the introduction of Cheetos, Go-Gurts, Lunchables, and, at the very end, baby carrots.

Using scientific research to achieve the most addictive, desirable aspects of a food product, product optimization is key, and from a marketing standpoint, is a driving force behind neuromarketing. Capitalizing on what they call “sensory-specific satiety”, Cadbury Schweppes has produced some of the most lucrative products,  Coca-Cola and Doritos as "complex formulas pique the taste buds enough to be alluring but don’t have a distinct, overriding single flavor that tells the brain to stop eating". As with these products, Lunchables also play victim to neuromarketing with high amounts of salt and sugar that drive the consumer's mind to crave more. Though targeting kids' ability to make their own lunches, these prepared lunches are charged with scientifically proven formulas that stimulate the consumer's brain. Because of this, this company is creating, producing, and succeeding from a manufactured desire in the food market. 

At the very end, however, one ex-Coca Cola worker shows another side of strategic marketing, one that positions healthy food amongst its competitors for the product class of snack foods. Marketing baby carrots with junk food behavior, without junk food health costs, this man exemplifies the intricacies of marketing in the snack food industry and the dangerous power it can hold. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0