I was five years old when Pepsi launched its Pepsi-Coke taste challenge television ads. Life was simpler for marketers then. Not only was the range of advertising media far less complicated, the little we thought we understood about consumer psychology led us to believe people followed a rational, conscious process when making buying decisions.
The concept seemed straightforward enough: set up a table, fill one small, unmarked cup with Pepsi and the other with Coca-Cola and ask passersby which they liked better. To Pepsi’s great joy (and Coke’s horror), more than half of the participants preferred Pepsi to Coke. Rather than question the unrealistic experimental conditions (like asking for a preference after just a sip rather than an entire can or bottle), Coke reacted by pouring millions of dollars into research and testing chasing what they thought the market wanted: a sweeter cola.
Introduced in 1985 by no less than Bill Cosby, New Coke was an immediate and colossal disaster. I cannot think of another product launch in history that cratered so quickly and caused so many otherwise reasonable people to take up arms in revolt against this apparent unholy abomination. Coca-Cola quickly apologized, pulled New Coke from shelves and brought back old Coke as “Coke Classic.”
Where did Coke go wrong? Did the “research” show consumers preferred a sweeter cola? Beyond the dubious conditions in which Pepsi’s (and Coke’s) taste tests were performed, we did not have a satisfying answer to that question until 2003 when a series of neuroimaging tests were performed at the Baylor College of Medicine. As chronicled by Martin Lindstrom in his 2008 book Buyology, a group of 67 test subjects were fitted with caps that measured blood flow in their brains so that changes could be measured in real time.
In the first experiment, each subject was presented with two unmarked cups of cola and asked for their preference. The results mirrored those of the original challenges from the 70s. In the second experiment, the subjects knew the brand of cola each cup contained. In this setting, 75 percent preferred Coke.
More interestingly, brain activity while drinking the cola samples varied. When the subjects did not know which cola they were drinking, their brains registered activity in the region associated with pleasant taste. But when they knew each sample’s brand identity, another part of their brains were stimulated: the medial prefrontal cortex, a portion of the brain associated with higher thinking and discernment. When the subjects were able to associate the brand with the cola sample, their subconscious faculties and emotions engaged in a tug of war … a war that the emotional appeal of the Coke brand was able to win over Pepsi’s rational appeal to the sense of taste.
What is the take away from this case and many others like it?
First, subconscious processes play a much more significant role in the consumer decision process than we previously thought. While a person may engage her or his conscious and critical processes to evaluate a purchase before making a decision (or, more likely, to rationalize the decision after the purchase), the subconscious brain is at work reacting to external stimuli and processing stored knowledge from past experiences far in advance.
Second, brands matter … and that a veteran and venerated marketing organization like Coca-Cola could forget that gives me hope that possibly my marketing mistakes are recoverable! Brands that appeal to emotion (what we refer to as “the heart”) have a profound advantage over brands that rely on rational, feature-based appeals (like Pepsi’s sweeter taste.)
That is why, at Brand Purpose, we assert that, for organizations that aspire to win loyalty, start with heart. That customer on the other side of the counter is a person … just like you. If you want to engage their heart (i.e. their subconscious, emotional decision-making capacity), start with yours. Leading with your heart means appealing to their deep needs and aspirations by expressing your own.
More about that as we move to the next points in this series. If you did not read the first installment, do so now to get the context. Follow us on LinkedIn to be alerted when the next installment is posted.
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All the best!
Jeremy and Tracey
