the psychology of pumpkin spice latte

The Meaning of Life: AKA – The Psychology of the Pumpkin Spice Latte

Pumpkin Spice Latte captures over $100M in revenue each year, has become a phenomenon unto itself, and is a powerful case study in neuromarketing.

Editor’s Note:  You’ll have to forgive the tongue-in-cheekiness of the headline because, as everyone knows, Pumpkin Spice Latte’s are not the controlling force in the universe.  However … the seasonal attraction to this simple sugary drink is so strong, so compelling, that it serves as a powerful case study in consumer psychology and how one brand is leveraging it.


 

How the psychology of associations makes the PSL irresistible

Winter is coming, but fall is coming first. Our ancestors celebrated the fall equinox in dramatic fashion. None celebrated harder than the Mayans who built a pyramid designed to create a shadow of a snake, which only appears during the equinox. The equinox (or giant snake shadows) marked the arrival of fall.

By Matt Johnson Ph.D.

Centuries later, fall is still a time for celebration. Instead of a slithering serpent, modern humans have honed in on a different marker, the arrival of The Pumpkin Spice Latte. As far as consumer behavior is concerned, it stands as the unofficial start of the fall shopping season. Unlike Halloween or Thanksgiving, it lasts much longer.

The Pumpkin Spice Latte, or PSL, as the cool kids call it, is an inescapable phenomenon. Initially greeted by a mixed reception in 2003, PSL quickly caught fire and never turned back. Starbucks describes it as the most successful seasonal drink of all time and credits it for anchoring the public’s buying behavior for the rest of the year.

A Forbes analysis estimates the Pumpkin Spice Latte exclusively captures over $100M in revenue each year. Along with back-to-school supplies, it is now synonymous with seasonal shopping.

Moreover, PSL is exclusively for fall consumption only. From a business standpoint, the fall-only window makes sense because scarcity creates demand. Beyond economics, there’s something else at play. The exclusive seasonality creates a mental relationship between the drink and the brain of the consumer, which transforms it from merely “a drink” to a transcendent psychological experience.

To better understand the relationship, we need first to understand the neuroscience of taste and how it relates to memory.

The Neuroscience of Taste and Memory

Taste is not our strong suit. In fact, it is the least developed sense in humans and not nearly as sharp as other senses. The weakness of taste leaves us susceptible to strong contextual associations.

Compare taste and vision. The most active foodies might experience ten unique flavors in a given day while encountering thousands of unique visual events. The discrepancy in data points affects taste-based memories.

When we experience a unique taste, our brain takes notice by creating a unique memory-by-association. Where does the association come from? The context. The brain connects the specific taste with the overall context in which the tasting occurred. It takes into account the time of day, what we were wearing, seeing, hearing, feeling, etc. Most important for the discussion of pumpkin spice lattes, the brain takes into account the season.

Think about it. You see the color red more than you taste cinnamon. So, the taste of cinnamon triggers particular memories in a way seeing the color red does not. This is why taste is closely tied to episodic memory, which is a memory of specific events or episodes.

What do taste, episodic memory, and pumpkin spice lattes have in common? They work together to cement psychological associations. Two variables play a vital role in building strong associations – exclusivity and repetition.

Think about it. Pumpkin spice lattes are consumed exclusively in the fall. Having one in April just feels wrong. Next, the tasting ritual is repeated annually, which works to amplify the strength of the association between taste and memory.

Each purchase of a Pumpkin Spice Latte strengthens the special relationship between the flavor and the fall season while also returning to mind all of the PSLs from our past. With every sip, the two become closer and more inseparable (nevermind the launch date of PSL is technically in the summer, August 27th).

With enough repetition, our brains connect the two to such a degree, we effectively drink the feeling of fall, despite being technically offered in the summer!

Beyond the PSL: Champagne, Beer and Consumer Behavior

Outside of Starbucks, these contextual associations have enormous consequences for the consumer world. Think about champagne. When do you drink champagne? You pop champagne when you’re celebrating. Really, champagne is exclusively consumed at a celebration. Just like the pumpkin spice latte tastes like fall, champagne toasts taste like a celebration.

This is excellent news for champagne brands when it’s New Year’s Eve, but what about the other 364 days of the year? 

Unlike the PSL, champagne’s associations come with a narrower economic window.

Here’s where our unique relationship with taste-based memories poses a challenge. Celebrations aside, champagne struggles to fit the contextual association of everyday “regular” drinking occasions. When you flop down on the couch on another Tuesday night, popping a bottle of bubbly is likely the last thing on your mind. The celebratory associations are too strong, which handcuffs the use-case and appeal of champagne.

The trade group French Wine and Food deliberately campaigned to broaden the appropriate context for champagne. Instead of celebratory events, they associated with spontaneous events instead. The (decidedly French) campaign slogan says it all, “Unexpected Things Happen In The ‘Oui’ Hours.”

Few competing products, namely upscale microbrew beers, have successfully penetrated the ‘celebration’ market. Brut IPAs and strong Belgium ales provide alternative options over champagne as the bubbly celebration drink of choice. The alternatives are not shy to mimic the look and feel of champagne either!

Beer brands’ strategy should sound familiar – create advertisements that pair the beer inside of a known context of their target market. Think Coors Light + sports or Corona + beaches. In the same way that champagne + celebrations have little objective commonalities, there may be little in common with beer and sports. But due to associative, contextual conditioning, we still reach for a beer when “the big game” is on.

Neuromarketing is why certain foods or certain drinks just feel right at a specific time. Our weakest sense of taste is effectively hacked by brands who successfully create contextual associations with edible products.

How far will brands take the contextual memory tactic? When will consumers catch on? Hard to say. One thing is certain; like winter and the fall equinox before it, Pumpkin Spice Latte is coming. Think of this when you have one!


This article originally appeared in PopNeuro. Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash.

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