1. ROLE OF BUZZWORDS IN JASMIN MEDITERRANEAN BISTRO
Authors: Kristen Bochicchio, Samuel Cho, Allison Clonch, Kayla Hale, Dana Said
We would like to thank the Said family for allowing us to use their facility for our
research. We would also like to thank the customers of Jasmin Mediterranean Bistro for
participating in our buzzword opinion survey.

2. Objective: The purpose of our research is to understand how buzzword introduction
affects sales in a casual dining establishment. We hypothesized that sales of items would
increase after buzzword introductions, and there would be a positive relationship between
customers’ preferred buzzwords and item sales.
Methods: Four posters each representing an item and buzzword were placed in a
restaurant. Sales of items were tracked one week prior to intervention and one week
during intervention. This was then followed by an online survey to assess buzzword
preference with customers at Jasmin Bistro.
Results: We saw an increase in sales from Week 1 to Week 2 in all items except for the
Eggplant Zaki, which decreased. Overall, there was a positive relationship between
customers’ preferred buzzwords and food item sales.
Conclusions and Implications: With a positive slope from 3 out of the 4 menu items we
applied buzzwords to, we can imply that sales of items would increase when specific
buzzwords are introduced.
Introduction:
The United States has one of the highest rates of obesity in the world with over
one-third of U.S. adults classified as obese. While the reasons for high rates of obesity are
numerous, there has been a rapid increase in meals eaten away from home in the form of
fast food or other restaurants, and these diets have been shown to have poor nutritional
quality.1 Because the number of meals eaten at home has increased, researchers have
started to analyze the impacts of nutrition labeling in restaurants and how additional
information like calorie counts can alter consumers’ habits.2,3,4 Studies about the
effectiveness of calorie counts on menus to alter consumer behaviors have yielded

3. interesting results. One study showed that only about 50% of people use calorie counts
provided in restaurants, and consumers might not understand which foods should be
considered high calorie or low calorie.3 In a different study, researchers found that
consumers exposed to calorie counts while ordering consume foods with 14% less
calories than those who did not have calorie counts available.4 This is evidence to support
that consumers view menu labeling when making food choices, and labeling can
influence food item sales.
Calorie counts are not the only option for menu labeling at restaurants; products
labeled “local” and “organic” have gained rapid popularity among consumers.5 Organic
food has a reputation among consumers as having potential health benefits and being
environmentally friendly. Research found that people generally choose organic for the
“overall benefits, which includes health, environmentally friendly packaging, and
environmentally friendly techniques.”6 Research has found that there is an overwhelming
positive attitude from consumers toward local foods on the basis of “supporting the local
economy and environmental benefits.” However, consumer preference to buy local foods
over other food items is largely variable and does not rely on demographic factors such as
economic status, race, or gender.7 Studies have not been conducted to look at the impact
on sales by labeling foods local or organic in a restaurant setting, but the words evoke a
positive attitude from consumers which could be utilized to illicit a change in consumer
preference.
Nutritional buzzwords are frequently used on packaging or in grocery stores, but
there is little research about their use in restaurant settings. Buzzwords attract people
because they characterize high quality foods, and display qualities that are valuable to our

4. everyday lives. With increased interest in researching food labeling at restaurants, our
research aimed to introduce nutritional buzzwords in a casual dining establishment and
analyze the change in sales of specific items before and after the intervention. We also
wanted to survey consumers to have a qualitative assessment of buzzword preference and
whether they used the buzzwords when ordering. We hypothesized the sales of items
would increase when we introduced buzzwords, and there would be a positive trend
between the consumers’ buzzword preference and item sales.
Methods:
Research Design: We selectively chose items from the Jasmin menu that were unpopular,
including the Chicken Shawarma, Eggplant Zaki, Spinach Zaki, and Whole Wheat
Wraps. During the first week, we collected data without administering our intervention.
During the second week, we advertised the items listed above with posters containing
buzzwords that described each item. We then compared the data between week 1 and
week 2. During the third week, we released a survey that asked customers to indicate the
extent to which the buzzwords would influence them to purchase the chosen items.
Sampling Methods: To circumvent complications with minors, participants who were
under 18 years of age were automatically kicked out of our survey. Participants required
a valid email address to enter the survey and obtain the coupon incentive.
Recruitment Strategies: We advertised our survey using a poster near the cash register
and by placing table tents on each table. Our incentive for participation was a 10% off
coupon for the bistro. Towards the end of our survey period we noticed we were not
acquiring enough responses to meet our goal. The researchers then went to Jasmin during
the third week with laptops and tablets to recruit participants in the survey.

5. Instruments and Tools: We designed four posters by assigning a buzzword to each food
item. We used the buzzwords “natural, hormone-free and steroid-free” on Prestige
Farm’s website to describe their chicken, which is used in the Chicken Shawarma. The
Eggplant Zaki contains eggplant from a local North Carolina farmer, so we labeled that
item as “Locally Grown.” The Spinach Zaki is “Made with Fresh Baby Spinach” as
indicated on the package, and we advertised the Whole Wheat Wraps as “Less Processed
[than refined wheat wraps], Aids in Healthy Digestion, and Promotes Satiety” (Appendix
A). In addition, we created an online survey that then asked customers to indicate how
the buzzwords on our posters influenced them to purchase the associated item (Appendix
B). The advertisements for our survey (Appendix C) contained a Quick Response code
for accessibility. The survey only took roughly two minutes to complete to minimize
participant burden.
Data Collection Procedures: We printed receipt summaries from each day of the first
week from the Jasmin cash register on Friday after closing. The receipts included specific
time frames from 11 AM to 11 PM. We also did not consider sales from Saturday or
Sunday since weekend hours vary from week to week. This could make it difficult to
accurately compare data between the control week and the intervention week. We
extracted the sales of the Chicken Shawarma, Eggplant Zaki, Spinach Zaki, and Whole
Wheat Wraps from the receipts and entered those numbers into an Excel spreadsheet. We
then repeated this process in the second week for comparison purposes.
Statistical Analysis: After data collection, we used SPSS to create graphs describing our
findings from our intervention and our survey. Sales data for each item were represented
using line plots. We were unable to use tests for significance because our data was not

6. normal. Further tests for significance were outside the scope of our training. We
compared data from the survey responses using box plots (Figure 5) to show the
distribution of responses, and compared these findings with the intervention results.
Results:
We observed changes when intervention was placed between Week 1 and Week 2
of our data. Our sample was a 10-day period (n=10) from Week 1 and Week 2.
Figures 1-4 show the trendline of the sales of each food item from Weeks 1 and 2. The
Spinach Zaki, Chicken Shawarma and whole wheat wraps increased in sales, but the
Eggplant Zaki reduced in sales. Figure 1 shows that the Spinach Zaki had a positive slope
(m=0.6909), which indicates sales of Spinach Zaki increased from Week 1 to Week 2.
Similar results were seen in Figures 3 and 4. Both Chicken Shawarma and whole wheat
wraps had positive slopes (m=0.6182 and m=0.2485, respectively) from which we can
conclude that sales increased from Week 1 to Week 2. However, in Figure 2 Eggplant
Zaki sales dropped; the slope of the trendline for Eggplant Zaki is m= -0.0061. Our data
was not normally distributed, therefore we could not conduct statistical tests for
significance on our data.
Our survey had a total of 49 respondents. The survey conducted showed a positive
correlation between buzzwords on the posters as well as buzzword influence when
applying food choices. Figure 5 shows the average consumer ranking of buzzwords in our
survey. The level of influence ranged from 1 to 3 with 3 being the most influential and 1
being the least. Figure 5 shows that the buzzword “fresh” had the greatest mean influence
of 2.57, followed by “locally grown” and “all natural-hormone and steroid free” with

7. mean influences of 2.33. People were less attracted to the buzzword “promotes satiety”
with the lowest mean of 1.65.
Discussion:
Our data generally supported our hypothesis that certain buzzwords influence
restaurant sales, but with restrictions. Only the Eggplant Zaki showed a downward trend
in sales (-0.61%) and we can deduce from this result that our intervention may not have a
specific effect on consumer results. The buzzwords associated with the Eggplant Zaki on
the posters during the intervention period was “Locally Grown.” The reason we
associated these specific buzzwords with the Eggplant Zaki is because it contains
eggplant grown from a local North Carolina farmer and products labeled “local” have
gained rapid popularity among consumers.5 In the survey, this buzzword had a mean
influence of 2.33 (on a 3.0 scale). However, since actual sales still declined with a highly
popular buzzword, we learned that this particular buzzword relationship was not
successful.
The Chicken Shawarma indicated a positive sale increase by 61.82%. The
buzzwords associated with this sandwich was “All Natural-Hormone and Steroid Free.”
We used the buzzwords “Natural, Hormone-Free and Steroid-Free” on Prestige Farm’s
website to describe their chicken, which is used in the Chicken Shawarma. The chicken
was raised with no fertilizers, pesticides, or chemicals. All of these terms are associated
with organic foods in over 30% of a survey conducted by the US Consumers’ Perception
of Local and Organic Foods.5 The average influence of these buzzwords according to our
survey was 2.33 (on a 3.0 scale), just like “Locally Grown” scored. The Spinach Zaki had
a similar correlation with increased sales by 69.09%. This used the trendy buzzwords

8. “Fresh” and “Baby” spinach. One study shows the word “Fresh” is associated with local
food in spontaneous thought only about 8.6% of the time.5 The average influence of the
buzzwords according to our survey results was 2.57 (on a 3.0 scale). Trends from the
Chicken Shawarma and Spinach Zaki support our hypothesis that buzzword choices have
a positive influence on Jasmin Bistro sales.
The whole-wheat wraps indicated a positive sale increase by 24.85% when
associated with the buzzwords “less processed, aids in healthy digestion, promotes
satiety.” According to the US Consumers’ Perception of Local and Organic Food, the
phrase “Less Processed” was second most popular when associated with better
production methods. The mean of all three of these buzzwords was only 1.86 (on a 3.0
scale). The whole-wheat wraps in Jasmin Bistro were not advertised at all before our
intervention with the posters. We cannot completely say that the buzzwords applied to the
posters had an influence on restaurant sales. However, letting consumers know the wraps
were available created an upward trend despite what degree of influence the buzzwords
may have had.
We came across few limitations with our research, one of them being the study
was only conducted at one Jasmin location. This means our results neither represent all
causal fast food dining settings nor all Jasmin restaurants. The subjects to our study were
mainly students from North Carolina State University. Selecting one location and
favoring a college student audience could have caused implications to our study, such as
fluctuations in business. For example we could have encouraged people the Monday-
Wednesday before spring holiday to take the survey, since the restaurant was not as busy
as it usually would be. By Wednesday (April 1st) we only had 15 surveys completed.

9. Due to the lack of response, we decided to go to Jasmin Bistro on April 2-3 to encourage
people to take the survey. At the end of the survey period, we received 49 respondents
and did not reach our goal of 100 completed surveys. The small sample size may not be
fully representative of all people’s opinions on buzzword influence.
A minor limitation we noticed while collecting data was how we could not
measure the influence of the word “organic.” Several people paralleled the literature,
noting on the survey and in person that this term often affects their food purchases.
Previously, we had “organic” in mind to be included in a poster until we confirmed its
use is regulated by the FDA. Our aims were to use non-regulated buzzwords, because
these are words any restaurant or food company could use with ease, especially if they
are found to help sales increase.
Additionally, there were some changes we could have made with our
advertisements. We discovered that some people did not want to take the survey because
they thought they were supporting the business’s revenue. After we informed them in
person that this would support student-led research, more people agreed to take our
survey. The advertisements for the surveys could have displayed a short description of
the research being done.
Although we did not come across many dire limitations, the few that we had
could have significantly impacted our results.
Implications for Researchand Practice:
With more funding and a longer research time frame, further research can yield
more meaningful results than our three-week study. Because this study is unprecedented,
it is our hope that it is a springboard for further dialog and research about the impact of

10. buzzwords in restaurants. We are presenting two recommendations for future research.
First, we recommend comparing the sale trends of each Jasmin location to another upon
implementing the same research strategies on each location. This will provide a more
meaningful research assessment, allowing the owners to see variation in buzzword
influence for each location. They can use this information when selecting which items
and buzzwords to advertise to their customers.
Secondly, we recommend lengthening the control and intervention phases.
Increasing the number of data points would produce more meaningful results to support
or reject our hypotheses. We would also recommend future researchers to administer the
online survey for a longer period of time to accumulate more responses and therefore
more meaningful data. With these two recommendations- expanding the number of
research locations and the timeframe- richer qualitative and quantitative data could be
acquired to draw more meaningful conclusions on buzzword influence on the sales of
menu food items.

11. Appendix A: Posters Containing Buzzwords for the Chicken Shawarma, Spinach Zaki,
Eggplant Zaki, and Whole Wheat Wraps. Posters were each 18x24.
Appendix B: Survey
Appendix C: Advertisement Design for Buzzword Opinion Survey. This design was
used for 25 table tents (one per table) and one laminate 8”x11” poster, which was hung
beside the cash register.

12. Figures 1-5

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