Permanent link for Research Review: "Utilizing Sensory and Visual Data in the Value Estimation of Extra Virgin Olive Oil" on January 17, 2025

Keeping up on your New Year’s resolution to cook more? If so, you may find yourself staring down an aisle of the grocery store, looking at infinite brand choices for a product. You’ve probably picked up a fancy, pricey version of a product, thinking to yourself, “is this worth it?”. If you have, you aren’t alone, as shoppers across the globe aim to make informed decisions regarding added product nutrients, where the product is made, and price point. 

A recent study done in Morocco and Tunisia studied that very phenomenon, using a cross-modal study to determine how sensory stimuli and visual stimuli play a role in how much customers are willing to pay (WTP) for a product, specifically, extra virgin olive oil. 

How was this study conducted:

1. Participants were gathered from various cities across Morocco and Tunisia to blind taste test various extra virgin olive oils
2. Afterwards, they were given generic bottles with the origin of each oil and its polyphenol content to try.
3. Participants were then informed about the taste profile of oils with higher polyphenol content, and given an explanation that oils with higher polyphenol content have various health benefits, following the same steps as before.
4. The participants were again asked to try four different olive oils, with plain bottles similar to stages 2 and 3.
5. Participants were asked to try olive oils again, this time seeing images of the front and back sides of each oil’s respective bottle.
6. Each participant was shown all four bottles and asked to choose one.

Findings:

Based on taste alone, participants generally found all of the olive oils to be worth the same. But when introduced to polyphenol benefits, participants from Tunisia, who seemed to be more aware of polyphenol, gave a higher WTP to the olive oils with more polyphenol, and once the Moroccan participants were educated on polyphenol, they also assigned higher WTPs to the oils with more polyphenol.

But where do biometrics come in? This is what the article shared:

“We were interested in investigating whether the duration of visual attention to different areas of interest (AOI), such as text about the origin and polyphenol content of the extra virgin olive oil, in combination with the characteristics of the oil (including taste, when relevant) and study phases, predicts participants WTP.” (Suurmets, Et al.) “With regards to visual attention, it was found that as the viewing time on AOI_Origin increases by 1 ms, the WTP is estimated to increase by 0.002 MAD”. (Suurmets, Et al.)

In summary, the researchers found that the more time spent looking at certain areas of the bottle, the willingness to purchase increased as well. 

What does this mean for us?

• Researching areas of interest on product packaging in tandem with taste may give us more complex analysis of grocery marketing
• Like other research methods, biometrics can be used in tandem with surveys and interviews to compare a multitude of variables at once
• We can now start to meld research of conscious and unconscious processing together in regards to product research, making for stronger, more reliable data
• Audience education is a critical component of product marketing, as an uninformed audience is less likely to care about a product’s benefit

Next time you’re at the grocery store, take a second to think about what features your eyes are drawn to on a product. 

Click here to read the full article.
Suurmets, S., Clement, J., Piras, S., Barlagne, C., Tura, M., Mokhtari, N., & Thabet, C. (2024). Utilizing Sensory and Visual Data in the Value Estimation of Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Foods, 13(18), 2904. http://doi.org/10.3390/foods13182904

Categories: Biometrics Research
Posted by Georgia Hessel on Permanent link for Research Review: "Utilizing Sensory and Visual Data in the Value Estimation of Extra Virgin Olive Oil" on January 17, 2025.