FEATURE
W
ithin hours of Bluebird® announcing that its new Kiwi Favourites™ chips range featured a lamington flavour, social media erupted in collective disgust. The chocolate and coconut-coated cakes our mums used to make were fine for afternoon tea, but potato chips they were not. The kindest assessment on Twitter, after “WTAF?” was that lamington crisps were an abomination. The day after the launch in late July, TV1 Breakfast host John Campbell proclaimed lamington chips were, “staggeringly bad. You’d have to be really stoned to enjoy that chip.” That night, Seven Sharp sent co-host Jeremy Wells to interview staff at the Wiri factory that spawned this dietary demon. In the Bluebird boardroom, meanwhile, there were probably high-fives all round. One bag of chips? $2.20. Five minutes’ free advertising on primetime television? Priceless.
The new flavour, one of four which included paua fritters, cheese and onion toastie, and Sunday roast, was least surprising to consumer research experts who recognised the scientific method in Bluebird’s apparent madness. Their research suggests the combination of attention-grabbing weirdness and the comfort of tradition can be a winning formula. “The chips — and the timing of them — are really interesting given the whole COVID-19 experience,” says Plant & Food Research psychologist Dr Denise Conroy. “This is very much a nostalgia thing but it is not just about our childhood — it is very New Zealand. We have always seen that in categories that don’t cost a lot of money, people do novelty-seek. It’s not a great deal of money to invest so if we’re disappointed it’s not as if we’ve bought a $75,000 car and we’re kicking ourselves.”
The science & psychology of taste Donna Chisholm looks at what’s behind the development of novel food products and what psychology, sensory and consumer science can tell us about balancing novelty, popularity and value in new products.
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