The 6 most used tricks by food advertisers

Advertising is, fundamentally, an attempt to convince to a series of people to buy a product or service using relatively little information about it.

Giving all the technical specifications of what is offered would not only be very expensive in terms of the type advertising space that would be necessary to hire, but also would not serve to persuade no one; if anything, it would be boring.

What is trying to do from advertising is to express feelings and ideas through mental shortcuts that allow to awaken interest in what is offered and make it gain a memorable halo of seduction, so that its effects remain during the period that passes between when you see the advertising piece and you are in a position to pay for the product.

And, if there is an area in which these psychological tricks that are used in marketing to sell things stand out, this is the one about food advertising.

The resources and tricks of the food ads

There are many types of advertising, and of course there are certain resources that are possible in some cases and not in others. However, many of them are not exclusive to just one of the classes and, in practice, they are very frequent.

Here you can see a review of some of the tricks that advertising uses to sell food products.

1. Strategically placed water drops

How to make a food appear much fresher than it really is? Simply by making the food on the screen have strategically placed water droplets, especially in the case of fruits and vegetables.

If it is such an effective measure, it is precisely because we don't stop to think why there is so much water in the food. Simply, our brain associates the image of the drops with the concept of "fresh", a very intuitive relationship between both ideas that makes us not question this mental shortcut.

2. Induction to synesthesia

The synesthesia It is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when information that enters through one sense (for example, sight) is experienced at the same time as if it had entered through another (for example, touch).

Advertising uses these resources so that seeing an advertising piece is the closest thing to being about to savor what is sold. For example, amplifying the sound of a cookie or potato chip crunching subtly evokes a tactile sensation. Seeing a slice of fried bacon bounce off a burger also provides insight into its texture.

3. The close-ups

The close-ups show us all the most appetizing details of the food. This food advertising strategy works in the first place, because seeing a food so enlarged makes it let's think that we have it very close to the eyes and, therefore, close to the mouth.

Thus, we already anticipate the taste that what we are seeing must have and, somehow, the neuroendocrine cycle that has to do with chewing and salivating begins. To reduce the feeling of frustration that would result from interrupting this cycle of physiological activationWe started to think about what we could do to savor that product as soon as possible; that is, hunger is shifted towards a goal in the near future, instead of eliminating it.

But, in addition, close-ups are the perfect excuse to resort to the following advertising strategy.

4. Slow motion

Slow motion is not something that in itself makes us want to buy a product more when used in food advertising, but it does allow advertisers to ensure that that the audience of a television spot see what they should see and do not lose detail.

In addition, there are images, such as what happens when two jets of fruit juices collide with each other in the air, that only make sense if they are shown in slow motion.

5. All kinds of image tricks

The function of the beer mug that appears in an advertisement is to look like it, not be it. Therefore, everything is done to create things that look like food without necessarily being so: the layer of bubbles that crowns the reeds is usually soap suds, cosmetic coated and painted foam rubber is used to create something resembling meat and many Edibles are filled with substances injected with syringes to make them appear bulkier and rounded.

And, of course, all the cost-effective computer-made effects have long been used to create three-dimensional models of food.

6. The still life

Everything about food (or pseudo-foods created for the occasion) that can and should entering through the eyes of advertisers' target audience is conveniently presented through a still life. The still life is basically the "showcase" of what it is about selling, an image in which the product or set of products appears occupying the entire center of the advertising piece. The idea here is to show the final look of what has been selling, to have all the relevant details displayed at once.

The objective of the still life is to create an image that is stored in memory and that serves to recognize the product at the point of sale. That is why in the case of television spots it almost always appears at the end, when the viewer's attention has already been captured and now is the time to help you achieve the big picture of the product, rather than a series of fragmented images displayed in different blueprints.