Can political cookies leave a bad taste in one’s mouth? Political ideology influences taste
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine whether companies’ donations to political parties can impact product experience, specifically taste.
Design/methodology/approach
Research design consists of four studies; three online, one in person. Participants were shown a cookie (Studies 1-3) or cereal (Study 4) and told that the producing company donated to either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party (Studies 1-3) or an unspecified party (Study 4).
Findings
Participants rated food products as less tasty if told they came from a company that donated to a party they object to. These effects were shown to be mediated by moral disgust (Study 3). Effects were restricted to taste and willingness to buy (Study 4), with no effects on other positive product dimensions.
Research limitations/implications
The studies provide a first piece of evidence that political donations by companies can negatively impact product experience. This can translate to purchase decisions through an emotional, rather than calculated, route.
Practical implications
Companies should be careful about making donations some of their consumers may find objectionable. This might impact both purchase and consumption decisions, as well as post-consumption word-of-mouth.
Originality/value
Companies’ political involvement can negatively impact subjective product experience, even though such information has no bearing on product quality. The current findings demonstrate that alterations in subjective product quality may underlie alterations in consumer decision-making because of ideologically tinged information, and reveals moral disgust as the mechanism underlying these effects. In this, it provides a first demonstration that even mild ideological information that is not globally bad or inherently immoral can generate moral disgust, and that such effects depend on consumers’ own attitudes.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank seminar participants in presentations of this research, as well as students in the Food and Brand Lab research seminar 2013-2014 for valuable comments. The author would also like to thank Ono Academic College (OAC) Research Fund, and Consumer Behavioral Lab for supporting this research.
Citation
Tal, A., Gvili, Y., Amar, M. and Wansink, B. (2017), "Can political cookies leave a bad taste in one’s mouth? Political ideology influences taste", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 51 No. 11/12, pp. 2175-2191. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-04-2015-0237
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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