In my experience I tend to find low-fat products labelled as 99% fat free much more often than the equivalent 1% fat.*Why is this so? To me it seems counter-intuitive, because it reminds me of psychological pricing, where retailers price things slightly less than round numbers, partly so that consumers under-perceive the price. If that same effect is happening with the 99% fat free labeling, consumers would over-perceive the amount of fat.Is it because the psychological pricing phenomenon doesn't apply in this case for whatever reason? Perhaps other phenomena are at play? Or perhaps it's something that doesn't have to do with the numbers?*: I can't find a source for this unfortunately, and I'm aware that in some circumstances the 1% fat form is the norm, for example with low-fat milk.
Why prefer 99% fat free to 1% fat?
perception;decision making;economics;consumer psychology;neuromarketing
If that same effect is happening with the 99% fat free labeling, consumers would over-perceive the amount of fatI think you are misunderstanding the desired effect here. I don't see how 99% fat free would lead to the impression that a product contains a lot of fat. My read is, This is 99% fat free! That's really good! as opposed to 1% fat which more emphasizes the fact that fat is still present than the fact that it's not. Said another way, because 99 is a far higher number than 1, the brain is more positive about getting something that is really good (much higher fat-free percentage) than something that is slightly bad (very small fat percentage)The other thing you may be overlooking is that fat free is a marketing term in and of itself. Products claim to be fat free in order to attract dieters / those looking to eat healthy. When comparing products people may choose the ones which have actively tried to reduce the amount of fat; this is what the fat free term is intended to convey. Compare that with milk, where 1% fat really means 1% milkfat, a technical description of how rich the milk is (where whole milk is 3.25% - 4% milkfat typically), so the terminology is not used as a means to advertise that product as being better than the competition but rather as a means to identify the content of the product itself.