The Impact of Supertasters On Taste Test and Marketing Outcomes: How an Innate Characteristic Shapes Taste, Preference, Experience, and Behavior

Abstract

This article introduces advertisers to a new segmentation technique based on an individual’s inherited taste sensitivity—that is, the “supertaster.” Three studies demonstrate that this inherited supertaster difference can explain blind taste-test anomalies, such as the Pepsi Challenge; heightened brand loyalty; and a reduced sensitivity to peripheral product cues, such as visual variations. These findings underscore a new vein of segmentation that has great promise for explaining variance in lab, expert, and crowd-sourced evaluations involving matters of taste.