Coffee and anthropomorphism!

Much of anthropomorphic advertising seems to escape conscious perception, even that of writers on subliminal techniques. Advertising researchers nonetheless have a working knowledge of implicit anthropomorphism. A researcher for a soap manufacturer, for example, asked respondents to describe roles shampoo might play in a dream. On respondent suggested “a gene, a savior, Tinkerbell sprinkling handfuls of gold dust.” Other researcher recommended that the bottle be made more feminine. Other researchers ask people to finish sentences such as, “M & M’s candies went to a party last night and……” Still others ask people to say whether a brand is a man or woman, how old it is, what car it drives, and what music it likes. Another researcher asked half a group of women to playact coffee; the other half Borden’s Cremora. “None wanted to act out coffee, which they saw as dark, touch, rugged, and manly,” says [the researcher] so he took the part and found himself embraced. The women told him they were softening him and making him milder. He told Cremora executives to feminize its package and to describe the interaction of coffee and Cremora in terms of a male-female relationship

Other researchers also find coffee perceived as male. The marketing firm that designed the current jar and label for Taster’s Choice coffee found that a label with a women’s picture caused tasters to fine that coffee weak, so they put a man’s face on the jar “not unlike a man’s torso.” This “vaguely masculine contour” was a success. ~ Page 233