Coca-Cola does it and it works. Kids like to see their names on stuff.

And now there’s research to back up the benefit of personalizing stuff with labels. And guess what. Personalizing stuff even works for “selling” healthy drinks!

Personalizing a beverage doesn’t just make unhealthy drinks like Coke more attractive. They make healthy beverages more attractive too.

Here’s the study. Researchers in Ireland offered children ages 8-13 a drink from a selection of 12 beverages (six healthy and six unhealthy). The children were randomly assigned to one of three groups:

  • Healthy drinks had personalized labels (3 drinks had the child’s name and 3 drinks had another name). The unhealthy drinks did not have personalized labels. (Healthy Group)
  • Unhealthy drinks had personalized labels (3 drinks had the child’s name and 3 drinks had another name). The healthy drinks did not have personalized labels. (Unhealthy Group)
  • No drinks had personalized labeled (Control Group)

Personalized labels work.

  • 33.6% of children in the Healthy Label group chose a healthy drink
  • 6% of children in the Unhealthy Label group chose a healthy drink

The good news is that some children from all the groups chose the healthy drink. In other words, healthy drinks can be appealing in their “natural” state, i.e. without a personalized label.

What’s this all mean?

  • Kids don’t need an added incentive to choose unhealthy drinks. An overwhelming majority of kids in the Control Group (83.1%) chose an unhealthy drink.
  • If you want your kids to choose a healthy drink, personalizing it with a label might just help.

In other words, it might be time to get crafty!

~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~

Source: McDarby, F., D. O’Hora, D. O’Shea, and M. Byrne. “Taking the Sweetness Out of the “Share a Coke” Marketing Campaign: the Influence of Personalized Labeling on Elementary School Children’s Bottled Drink Choices.” Pediatric Obesity.