How Does This Happen to Smart People? (Part 1)

Are you a smart person?

What kind of question is that?!! Of course we’re all smart people. So how is it that when it comes to food, we’re often not so very smart:

• Uncritically trusting what food companies tell us about their products.
• Trusting that if something is on the grocery store shelf, it must be safe to eat.
• And getting hoodwinked into buying and eating all sorts of foods that do nothing to nurture us and even harm us.

The answer to this mystery is that being smart doesn’t matter. Food marketers utilize such sophisticated psychological techniques that we don’t even know we’re being manipulated to buy and eat things that aren’t in our own best interest!

That’s why, if we want to be healthy, we have to develop a different kind of smarts, i.e., “marketing-smarts.” So “Food Marketing Shenanigans” is the topic of this series of posts, so we can all be smarter than the food marketers.

Let’s get started with, of all things, deodorant!

Q1: Will you be using whole-body deodorant soon?

A1: If the personal-care industry has its way with us, we’ll all soon be slathering deodorant over our entire bodies.

Consumer giants like Unilever and P&G “are going on a marketing blitz to convince people that underarms aren’t the only body parts that need deodorant.” They have developed whole-body deodorants, this year’s “breakout innovation,” and are now heavily promoting the idea that deodorant “can be used on any part of the body.”

Q2: What in the world does whole-body deodorant have to do with healthy eating?

A2: Because the way deodorant giants convince us to buy whole-body deodorants are the exact same way food giants convince us to buy foods that are unnecessary and harmful to our health.

We all know the dangers of marketing in general, but maybe it’s hard to see its effects in the food world when presented with temptingly yummy and convenient products at the grocery store. With their mouthwatering pictures and eye-catching packages they almost jump into our shopping baskets!

Maybe it helps to see how powerfully marketing works in an unrelated area, like deodorants. Marketing experts fully expect that the promotions for whole body deodorants will be wildly successful. Hopefully that can help us see and remember how we are constantly being played with respect to our food choices.

By the way, deodorant makers double their revenues by convincing us to needlessly slather deodorant all over our bodies. We do the same favor for processed food manufacturers by buying into the blitz of ads promoting their packaged food products. (Ironically, we are paying for their harmful marketing!)

Whether it’s Lunchers, Carrots with Sweet Butter Sauce, Little Debbie Mini-Muffins, Chili-Cheese Beef Jerky, or Bacon Mac ‘n Cheese, there’s only one way to arm yourself against the onslaught of clever marketing techniques: Read the ingredient listing! That’s the only way to see if you’ll be eating real, whole foods or a skillfully marketed food facsimile.

“Deodorant Sales Move Beyond the Armpit,” WSJ: August 5, 2024, B1.