Popped or Fried?

           While I find the comparison of upper and lower class through potato chips a little silly, there is no denying the results of Freedman and Jurafsky’s study. By comparing the price per ounce of a variety of brands, they classified half as upper and half as lower class chips (knowing that the respective socioeconomic status of each class would lead them to buy either an inexpensive or expensive bag of chips). From here they found a correlation between the price of a bag of chips and advertising strategy used on it.

            For chips marketed to the upper class, more negative and unique language was used; this serves to create a distinction between the classes, to elevate one while lowering the other. While both upper and lower class marketing approaches hit on authenticity, for the upper class authenticity takes on a natural connotation. Things saying the product uses all natural ingredients or a refined process are seen. Health tended to be referenced more on these bags as well. Even though all the brands had no trans-fat and other such things, the upper class ones pointed it out. Also, because status and education tend to be directly proportional, the upper class chip bags had a higher reading level, with more complex sentences and larger words.

            For everything the upper class chip bags had, the lower one’s had the opposite. They cited health less, didn’t use unique language, and had a lower reading level with more common words. Authenticity took on mentions of historical or traditional facts about the chip companies themselves, things like “Been in business since” or citing the founders. Apparently, these properties appeal to the roots of the working class.

            While I was reading through the historical references made on the bags, it reminded me of those Ocean Spray commercials. They feature two plain spoken guys standing in a vat of cranberries. Usually one of them comes off as kind of dumb, like when they leave the top off the blender. You would think this is geared toward the lower socioeconomic status, but they also talk about how it has 100% juice with no added sugar. This seems like the health appeals of the chip bags.

Anyway, my personal favorites potato chips are kettle cooked original Lays. The bag has “all natural” and “0 grams trans-fat” right on the front, so according to Freedman and Jurafsky I have the tastes of a high socioeconomic status. Too bad I don’t have the wallet of one. Luckily, being a broke college student, they carry these at the C Store so I can just use meal plan cash.