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03.03.2004

“HartBeat” is The Hartman Group's FREE online newsletter, providing insight, analysis, information and strategy to give business leaders the knowledge and vision to build sustainable brands.

For more on THE VANISHING POTATO...

Our 3 Low-Carb Myths should make it clear that it's time to go into the pantries and everyday lives of low-carb consumers. Building off the foundational research in our Low-Carb Pulse Report, we are now organizing an in-depth, national syndicated study of Low-Carb dieting that will explore the 3 Low-Carb Myths and a whole host of other questions that food and beverage manufacturers need to know, before they retool their product portfolios.

For more Hartman Group articles on CONSUMER MYTHS...

June 20, 2002 "Wellness Myth #1: Retailers Already Know and Understand the Wellness Market"

July 16, 2002 "Wellness Myth #2: The Organic Consumer Is Limited to a Specific, Well-Defined Demographic"

August 15, 2002 "Wellness Myth #3: Wellness Is Just a Small Niche Market"

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Where Are My Potatoes?

3 Myths About Low-carb Dieting

3 myths about low-carb dieting

Not too long ago many Americans were giddily rekindling their love affair with the potato. Pierogis and Piroshkis were popping up in the most unlikely of places. Restaurants and gourmet prepared food outlets were adding exotic spices, like fennel, to the otherwise tired "mashed potato" side dish. And Taco Bell had a major hit with its "Mexi Fries." Recently, though, people don't seem to be eating potatoes at home at all any more. Restaurants have lost interest in their fancy mashed dishes. Avid McDonald's fans are even skipping their fries more and more. So where in Spud's name has the potato gone?!

Bread, potatoes, pasta and rice are now the most feared American foods, even though, not long ago, they were thought to be the glutton's ultimate solace, a dietary refuge where one could practically do no wrong. Glib media reports tell us that the explanation for this consumer trend is obvious - the now infamous "Low-Carb" diet craze. Potatoes are out because carbohydrates are the evil molecule-of-the-moment; and therefore, consumers are reducing their consumption. This is a common sense explanation that seems oddly compelling. But, in our opinion, it barely scratches the surface.

Research firms keep cranking out polls and updates on the low-carb phenomenon, tabulating the percentage of low-carb dieters and assessing their evolving interest in low-carb products. For example, recently released survey results claim that two-thirds of those on low-carb diets find it "very" or "somewhat" important that a food item has a low-carb brand label. But what does this statement mean? Is looking for low-carb labels really the most important behavior that low-carb dieters engage in? What, for example, explains the difference between "very" and "somewhat" interested in "low-carb" labels when we consider snack food vs. family dinner food vs. on-the-run food?

While we obviously believe in the value of quantitative research, we also understand the serious limitations of surveys when trying to answer behavioral questions that affect our understanding of how dieting consumers make everyday consumption and purchase decisions. We, for example, conducted our own quantitative survey of low-carb dieting last October but as part of a combination of primary quantitative and qualitative research as well as a secondary research review (see Pulse Report: The Low-Carb Diet and Today's Consumer, 2003). Our anthropological and ethnographic research methods allow us to go beyond the survey data into the everyday lives of consumers to find out things like: when, exactly, do low-carb dieters care about low-carb products and why do they care at those moments and not others?

Over the last six months, since our Low-Carb Report first came out, we feel that unsettling myths have been spreading about low-carb dieting behavior that have no solid consumer research to back them up. Here are just 3 Low-Carb Myths to ponder, along with why our own recent research on dieting and weight management makes them ring hollow.

Myth # 1 Low Carb Diets are Just About Carbohydrates.
Are ingredient-based diets simply about the molecules for which they are named? Or are they perhaps more rooted in a general, religious-like approach to controlling what we eat? Our recent research on obesity (see Obesity in America) suggests that consumers continue to try new diets even when they have seen diet after diet fail to gain traction in their lives. The American faith in diets seems invincible to empirical evidence that dieting, by itself, doesn't really work. My grandma couldn't lose weight permanently on a low-fat diet, so why is she so excited about her low-carb diet? Each new diet, especially those focused on discrete molecules (e.g., sugar, fat, cholesterol, carbohydrates), inspires an almost evangelical optimism in the hearts of American consumers struggling, somehow, to shed pounds. Here at The Hartman Group we are starting to believe that the interest in these trendy diets is not driven primarily by a naive belief that "this new diet is finally the answer" but rather that diets themselves emerge from a general cultural orientation, a religious-like obligation towards self-improvement. Cutting down on fat or carbs, or whatever the molecule-of-the-moment is, helps fulfill this broader cultural obligation. A change from fat to carbs, then, energizes consumers by playing on the religious promise that this is finally the one that will work. If this is the case, the lesson for marketers may be to look beyond the molecule and market to the broader cultural approach to dieting.

Myth # 2 Dieters are Rational and Systematic Consumers
What is the everyday presence of low-carb products in consumers' lives? Do consumers look for them wherever and whenever they can? Surveys, however statistically valid, simply can't offer the kind of data that explains when low-carb dieters care about low-carb products and when they don't. In the absence of this kind of nuanced data, nervous food and beverage CEOs might easily jump to the conclusion to create a "low" version of whatever the current evil molecule may be.

Wait a minute! Attack not thy portfolio before it is time. Our most current research on obesity and weight management suggests that Americans are remarkably unsystematic in their application of dietary restrictions. Consumers don't shop for products to meet dietary needs so much as for food and drink that works in coherent cultural occasions/behaviors they partake in regularly. Our Low-Carb Pulse Report also revealed that snack food is one of the key food categories in which consumers are likely to try products labeled "low-carb." The astonishing recent sales in low-carb energy bars have confirmed this initial finding. But why is the energy bar such a successful site for low-carb labeling and product design? Because it was one of the first foods to go low-carb is not a sufficient answer, though tempting. We have some ideas of our own, but only in-depth ethnographic research promises to answer this question and explode the second Low-Carb Myth.

Myth # 3 When a New Diet Appears, It Replaces the Old Ones
What is the relationship between low-carb and low-fat in consumers' minds? Do consumers really just convert from being low-fat dieters to being low-carb dieters? Or do established dieting habits continue, however weakly? In our Low-Carb Pulse Report, we show evidence that consumers are, in the initial stages at least, often cobbling together various "low" diets in ad-hoc dieting strategies that lack the coherence this myth would otherwise impute to them. Dr. Atkins' website itself has posted an answer to an FAQ on this same issue, "Can I do a low-fat version of Atkins?" implying that consumers are trying to find ways to be "low" in multiple areas at once. While surveys alone could ask consumers remotely if they are interested in low-fat/low-carb products, it is critical to know which food categories and occasions really are connected to their dieting agenda. Only ethnographic research can yield these answers.

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