For decades marketing experts have sold luxury watches by appealing to customers’ love of adventure and adrenaline.

But a handful of independent brands are finding that it might be just as effective to tap into appetites of a more fundamental nature: Whether they are taking branding inspiration from cafe culture or producing watches with dials featuring tropical fruit and berries, watchmakers are showing that the route to customers’ wrists might well be through their stomachs.

It is not a totally new approach. About 10 years ago the cosmetics industry saw the success of so-called “foodie skin care” as beauty and wellness brands began to emphasize the organic qualities of their products. But could it really work with luxury watches?

A 2015 study by researchers at the University of Michigan found that people spend more when they are hungry, even on objects unrelated to food, so maybe watchmakers are onto something after all.

The approach can take different forms. At the simplest level, there is the industry’s tendency to rename colors as desirable foodstuffs. For example, pinkish watches are said to have salmon dials. Breitling sells what it calls a pistachio-green chronograph and Tudor, a chocolate-brown dress watch.

In September, the British brand Studio Underd0g — a company known for its lighthearted allusions to food, such as its best-selling red and green model Watermel0n — introduced a Series 03 Salm0n, its dial resembling the finely textured gray of salmon skin.