Making ugly produce more attractive with 'googly eyes'

With some shoppers hesitant to look beyond the unusual shape of imperfect produce — because it's what's inside that counts — perhaps a makeover could help.

Putting “googly eyes” on ugly produce may be one way to increase demand, according to a new study.

Called “From ugly to attractive: Leveraging anthropomorphism to increase demand for irregular-appearing produce,” the paper was published in May in the journal Psychology and Marketing and was authored by Kacy Kim, Yuhosua Ryoo, Danae Manika, Nathan Yoon and Sukki Yoon.

Recognizing that the waste of imperfect produce contributes to the global environmental crisis, the authors conducted three studies examining whether retailers can use anthropomorphizing — that is, to attribute human form or personality — marketing techniques to make irregular-appearing produce more attractive and increase purchase intentions.

Based on the exemplar model theory (a cognitive theory that explains how people categorize objects and ideas by comparing new stimuli to stored memories) the first part of the study showed that when retailers place googly eyes on pictures of irregular-appearing produce, consumers judge the product according to multiple exemplars as they do when they evaluate humans.

“The multiple esthetic cues cause them to perceive irregular produce as more attractive,” the study abstract said.

The second part of the study used human names as the anthropomorphic cues, demonstrating that anthropomorphism can increase purchase intentions toward irregular-appearing produce. The third part of the study showed that anthropomorphism effects hold for irregular-appearing produce from corporate farms and not from local farms.

“The differences occur because consumers expect corporate farms to conform to standardized esthetic norms but expect local farms to market irregular-appearing produce,” the abstract said.

The article includes suggestions for promotion strategies that use anthropomorphizing to change attitudes and increase purchase intentions toward irregular-appearing produce.