Sweetness in Marketing

Abstract

In general, “marketing” of any product addresses problems of product acceptance, pricing, distribution, and advertising (Nelson 1982). Sweetness may be associated with pricing to the extent that various levels and types of sweetener affect production costs and acceptability. Sweetness can have a role in product distribution in cases where potential, geographically distinct markets showed large differences in preferred levels of product sweetness. However, the most significant incorporation of product sweetness into marketing can be broken down into (a) the use of sweetness in increasing the market of a given product without specific reference to sweetness itself (i.e., sweetness as a tool to increase product acceptance), and (b) explicit marketing of the sweetness of the product (e.g., use of sweetness of the product as an advertising element). The first is more an element of product development but some methodological similarities with marketing are noteworthy. Naturally, for a specific product both of these elements could be involved to a greater or lesser degree.