M&S Food Porn

Marks & Spencer's food advertising uses slow-motion visuals of food, dubbed "food porn," to trigger primal responses.

This technique, focusing on food in motion, dramatically increased sales, exemplifying multi-sensory marketing.

Transcript:

Phil Barden

So my second example is Marks& Spencer's in the UK, which is an upscale retailer. And this is to do specifically with their food advertising, which has become quite iconic. So back in 2005, they showed a TV commercial for a chocolate pudding. It was one of these puddings that you sponge pudding that you bake. And when you cut into it, the chocolate is molten inside and it oozes out.

Michael Aaron Flicker

The whole thing is very British and not American. I love all about this so far. Go ahead, please.

Phil Barden

What made it unique really was it was done very slowly, so slow motion. There was music and a voiceover, all of which contributed to salivation. So we were engaged immediately, the way they described the product, the slow motion of opening, cutting into this chocolate pudding. And once that molten chocolate started oozing out that had an enormous impact um on the nation in fact sales went up three and a half thousand percent wow just after that ad um and it was It coined a a phrase that's gone into sort of common parlance in the uk which is this is not just food this is m&s food or this is not just chocolate pudding this is an M&S chocolate pudding. Wow. So people use this in other examples and other fields now. By 2014, all of the food that they showed in their advertising was shown in motion. Now why is that? And this has become known as food porn. Yeah, yeah. And Professor Charles Spencer, you mentioned, is probably the key protagonist here, the professor at Oxford who specialises in the senses and the interplay and interaction of the Senses. And he wrote a book called Gastrophysics. Great book. Which is all about this. He advised Heston blumenthal with his um the fat duck the three michelin star restaurant that he has where they you know they even change the lighting of the table they change the sounds Of the play they change the crockery size shape and color on which your food is served because they know that that that interplay of of different senses will heighten the experience. But what Spence talked about specifically, I think is really interesting because it goes back to our ancestors, that food in motion, even if it was implied motion, it doesn't have to Even be real motion, but food in motion, in particular protein in motion or energy-dense, energy-rich food in motion, trigger this food porn effect in the brain. The reason is it's the kind of stimulus that our brains have evolved to detect, track, and concentrate on visually. Why? Because it's fresh and it's good for us and therefore we can eat it.

Michael Aaron Flicker

Clarifying. So this is a turkey coming out of an oven or a plate of food being put on the table. Is that what you mean by in motion?

Phil Barden

I just want to make sure I understand it. Yeah, exactly. Or in the case of M&S, apart from the chocolate pudding with the chocolate oozing, they also did it with burgers where you cut into a burger and you see the fat dripping down in slow motion As well. I see. So, you know, that triggers something millennia old in our brains that this is good to eat because it's a source of energy, it's a source of protein, and it's recently alive as well rather Than something that is static, which could actually kill us because it might have toxins in.

Behavioral Science For Brands: Leveraging behavioral science in brand marketing. • Interview With Phil Barden: Author of Decoded