Everyday Systems

Last night I was reading The Omnivore's Dilemma and there was an explanation of how supersizing got started.

"...the sodamakers don't deserve credit for the invention of supersizing. That distinction goes to a man named David Wallerstein. Until his death in 1993, Wallerstein served on the board of directors at McDonald's, but in the fifties and sixties, he worked for chain of movie theaters in Texas, where he labored to expand sales of soda and popcorn -- the high mark-up items that theaters depend on for their profitability. As the story is told in John Love's official history of McDonald's, Wallerstein tried everything he could think of to goose up sales -- two-for-one deals, matinee specials -- but found he simply could not induce customers to buy more than one soda and one bag of popcorn. He thought he knew why: Going for seconds makes people feel piggish.

Wallerstein discovered that people would spring for more popcorn and soda -- a lot more -- as long as it came in a single gigantic serving. This was born the two-quart bucket of popcorn, the sixty-four ounce Big Gulp, and in time, the Big Mac and jumbo fries, though Ray Kroc himself took some convincing. In 1968 Wallerstein went to work at McDonald's, but try as he might, he couldn't convince Kroc, the company's founder, of supersizing's magic powers.

"If people want more fries," Kroc told him, "they can buy two bags." Wallerstein patiently explained that McDonald's customers did want more but were reluctant to buy a second bag. "They don't want to look like gluttons."

Kroc remained skeptical, so Wallerstein went looking for proof. He began staking out McDonald's outlets in and around Chicago, observing how people ate. He saw customers noisily draining their sodas, and digging infinitesimal bits of salt and burnt spud out of their little bags of French fries. After Wallerstein presented his findings, Kroc relented and approved supersized portions, and the dramatic spike in sales confirmed the marketer's hunch. Deep cultural taboos against gluttony -- one of the seven deadly sins, after all -- had been holding us back. Wallerstein's dubious achievement was to devise the dietary equivalent of a papal dispensation: Supersize it! He had discovered the secret to expanding the (supposedly) fixed human stomach."

Well, we seem to have lost the taboo against gluttony, thanks to Wallerstein. Amazing how one marketing tool can end up making so much difference! Many of the things that are problematic for us in terms of diet now are the results of things the food industry and marketing have done.

What an interesting post. I'd like to read that book. It's amazing how manipulated we are, in so many areas.

I read a book once about how the industrial revolution and mass production changed what we ate. in the 1800s only the weathy could afford white bread and the lower classes ate only full grain bread. Then, when factories started making bread they found that it was much easier to mass produce white bread, so they marketed it to the lower and middle classes. Of course, as bread was the primary staple of their diets, they now had a much less healthy staple, and the health of the lower classes went way down as a result. Go figure.

Fascinating. It's shocking how the drive for profit can lead people to do incredibly unethical things, without ever thinking about the ethics of it.

I was thinking of the boycott against Nestle many years back. Very unethical behavior, which affected so many poor women and their babies in third world countries.

Reading that reminded me of The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard.

From Wikipedia:

In The Hidden Persuaders, first published in 1957, Packard explores the use of consumer motivational research and other psychological techniques, including depth psychology and subliminal tactics, by advertisers to manipulate expectations and induce desire for products, particularly in the American postwar era. It also explores the manipulative techniques of promoting politicians to the electorate. The book questions the morality of using these techniques.

That book will be rereleased this summer.

That book will be rereleased this summer.

Interesting... but how do we know they aren't using similar techniques in the book, to persuade you to their conclusions?

It also seems that super-sizing is startingn to disappear from McD's menus. I wonder if, ironically, people felt even more piggish getting the super-size?? But then, now they also have a double filet-o-fish, and finding the 6-piece chicken mcnugget is hard outside of a kid's meal (smallest size is 9 in a lot of places now). So go figure...

What's interesting about this is that it shows the power of "no seconds."

McDonalds had to subvert this natural instinct of ours to be embarrassed by going back for seconds by rolling seconds into firsts.

Imagine how much more effective it would be to work with this instinct, as No-essers do, than around and against it? We can learn something valuable about human nature from the millions of dollars of research of these clever marketers.

It does seem, now that McDonalds etc. have been called out about this strategy, that maybe there will be less temptation from this direction. But let's not count on it -- supersizes (or whatever euphemism they come up with for it next) definitely count as an S.

Reinhard