This paper illustrates how an understanding of consumer models, psychological processes and the appropriate use of marketing research techniques can help in the design of food packaging and label copy to provide a company with a competitive advantage. The paper examines the significance of the marketing functions of a pack and the perceptual processes of consumers in their information search concerning pack design and labelling in marketing research. Case study material is introduced to help illustrate the main points.

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Professor Clive Nancarrow is Professor of Marketing Research at Bristol Business School, University of the West of England. Research interests include marketing research applications and consumer behaviour. With an academic background in psychology, he pursued a career in market research on both the research agency and client side (L'Oreal) before joining Bristol Business School. He continues to be involved with the marketing research industry in a consultancy role. He has been retained by a number of major international companies and presents regularly at both academic and practitioner conferences.Ian Brace is Director of Research methods at TNS UK, where his role is to provide consultancy on research methodology and reporting for major projects. TNS is the largest market research company in the world. Ian has been a market researcher for over 30 years, during which time he worked for MAS Survey Research, NOP, Esso Petroleum and BJM Research.

The increasing use of Internet-based qualitative and quantitative research is based on both``pull'' and``push'' factors.``Pull'' factors include research clients' demand for faster turnaround and low cost, while marketing research agencies' naturally competitive endeavours represent thè`p ush''. Attempts``to clear the e-mist'' regarding research on the Internet and examines the main types of Internet based research (qualitative and quantitative) as well as seven``sins'' for Internet researchers ± based on interviews with leading providers of Internet market research and IT specialists. Concludes that there is a need for both practitioners and academics to ensure their houses are kept in order and to respect the rights of respondents and clients and, just as importantly, be seen to be doing this and so keep possible interference by governments at bay.

Classifying people according to their tastes in food and drink is a fruitful and topical area of market research. The late 1990s have shown an increasing preoccupation with the presentation of food and drink, a trend which has not abated with the start of the new millennium. With increasing publications and television portrayals, chefs and cookery writers have been turned with alacrity into fashion icons. This paper is about tastes in food. It analyses Bourdieu’s proposition that our tastes in food betray our social origins and draws on interesting distinctions in the literature between the UK and France. Historical reasons relating to industrial development and their influences on what the different social classes eat, are discussed. For instance, the French, in comparison to the British, have sought more gastronomic quality in what they eat. Through a combination of mini‐cases, market research and literature studies the development of important influences is explored, such as class membership and postmodernist trends in consumption. For example the postmodernist preferences for style over substance and lifestyle fashion for myriad food preparations have also resulted in crossovers in cultures and in fragmentation of taste and presentation. The paper concludes that more attention should be paid by suppliers to the “cultural drivers” of food and drink in guiding new product development and branding.