How Not to Diet

by Michael Greger

Just to give you a sense of marketing’s insidious nature, let me share an interesting piece of research published in Nature, the world’s leading180 scientific journal. The article titled “In-Store Music Affects Product Choice” documented an experiment in which either French accordion or German Bierkeller music was played on alternate days in the wine section of a grocery store.181 On the days the French music played in the background, people were three times more likely to buy French wine, and on German music day, shoppers were about three times more likely to buy German wine. Despite the dramatic effect—not just a few percent difference but a complete threefold reversal—when approached afterward, the vast majority of shoppers denied the music had influenced their choices.182