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The International Brain Injury Association’s Eighth World Congress on Brain Injury will be held in Washington, DC, March 10-14, 2010. The IBIA World Congress is the largest gathering of international professionals working in the field of brain injury. Delegates are comprised of physicians, psychologists and neuropsychologists, therapists and rehabilitation professionals, social workers, nurses, case managers, legal professionals, advocates and all others working in the field of brain injury.

The aim of the Eighth World Congress is to provide an opportunity for establishing collegial relationships with international professionals focused on the care and/or service of persons with acquired brain injury and/or the science of brain injury research. State of the art research will be presented dealing with information spanning from basic science to clinical (coma to community) aspects of brain injury.  This will be the first time the World Congress has been held in the United States.  For additional information on the IBIA’s World Congress please visit their website online here.

Corporations spend billions of dollars each year on food advertising. For example, Kraft Foods, PepsiCo, and McDonald's each spent more than $1 billion in advertising in 2007. A newly released study in the Journal of Consumer Research suggests those advertisers are missing out if their ads only mention taste and ignore our other senses.

Naturally, most food ads mention the taste of the food being marketed. But authors Ryan S. Elder and Aradhna Krishna (both University of Michigan) demonstrate that tapping into our other senses can actually increase consumers' taste perceptions.

"Because taste is generated from multiple senses (smell, texture, sight, and sound), ads mentioning these senses will have a significant impact on taste over ads mentioning taste alone," write the authors.

In the experiments, participants were randomly assigned to view one of two ads. One ad was designed to appeal to multiple senses (for example, a tagline for a chewing gum read "stimulate your senses"), while the other ad mentioned taste alone ("long-lasting flavor"). After sampling the gum, the participants listed thoughts they had regarding the item and then rated the overall taste.

"The multiple-sense ad led to more positive sensory thoughts, which then led to higher taste perception than the single-sense ad," the authors write. "The differences in thoughts were shown to drive the differences in taste." The results were repeated with potato chips and popcorn.

The authors believe their research can help advertisers reword ad copy to lead to significant differences in taste. "These results are of great value not only to food advertisers, but also to restaurants, as the descriptions contained within menus can actually alter the taste experience," the authors write. "Further, companies can implement the findings into product packaging information to alter the taste of products consumed in the home. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, ensuring positive consumption experiences is critical to success".


Posted by: Evelyn    Source