Influence of Beer Brand Identification on Taste Perception Author(s): Ralph I. Allison and Kenneth P.

Uhl Source: Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. 1, No. 3, (Aug., 1964), pp. 36-39 Published by: American Marketing Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3150054 Accessed: 13/08/2008 09:53
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36

Influence
on

of

Beer

Brand

Identification

Taste

Perception

RALPH I. ALLISON and KENNETH P. UHL*

) As a company tries to find the factors accounting for strong and weak markets, typical consumer explanations for both tend to be in terms of the physical attributes of the product. Carling Brewing Company used a relatively inexpensive experiment to help dichotomize contributing influences as being either product or marketing oriented and, also, to indicate the magnitude of the marketing influence for various brands. The experiment involved the use of groups of beer drinkersthat tasted (drank) and rated beer from nude bottles and from labeled bottles.

As a company tries to find the factors accounting for strong and weak markets, typical consumer explanations for both tend to be about the physical attributes of the product. That is, the product quality often becomes both the hero and the culprit, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but with the hideous reversal coming not by night but by market. The experiment presented in this paper was also designed to give rough measurements of the magnitude of the marketing influences. Unidentified and then labeled bottles of beer were delivered to homes of taste testing participants on successive weeks. The drinkers' taste test ratings provided the data for the study. THE EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN1 The principal hypothesis subjected to testing through experimentation was this: "Beer drinkers cannot distinguish among major brands of unlabeled beer either on an overall basis or on selected characteristics." Beer drinkers were identified as males who drank beer at least three times a week. The test group was composed of 326 drinkers who were randomly selected, agreed to participate in the study, and provided necessary classification data. Each participant in the experiment was given a six-pack of unlabeled beer, identified only by tags bearing the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, or J. The labels had been completely soaked off and the crowns had been
* Ralph Allison is director of market research for National Distillers Products Company and was formerly director of planning and research for the Carling Brewing Company; Kenneth P. Uhl is associate professor of marketing and assistant dean of the College of Business Administration at the State University of Iowa. The experimental design and the findings outlined are from one market area. However, similar experiments were conducted and similar results were obtained in several other markets.

wire brushed to remove all brand identification from the 12-ounce deposit brown bottles. Each six-pack contained three brands of beer with individual bottles randomly placed in the pack so no one lettered tag predominated in any one position.2 There were six different pairs placed among the 326 participants. An effort was made to give each participant a six-pack that contained the brand of beer he said he most often drank. The groups and numbers were placed as follows: Group 1 (AB, Group 2 (AB, Group 3 (AB, Group 4 (AB, Group 5 (AB, Group 6 (AB, CD, EF) CD, IJ) CD, GH) EF, IJ) GH, IJ) EF, GH) Placed 53 55 55 55 54 54 326 A and B represented one of the company's beer brands; C and D represented one major regional beer brand; and E and F were one other major brand of regional beer. G and H were one national brand; and I and J were the fifth well-known beer brand used in the experiment. Among these five brands there were some taste differences discernible to expert taste testers. The lettered tags (one around the collar of each bottle in the six-pack) carried a general rating scale from "1" (poor) through "10" (excellent) on the one side and a list of nine specific characteristics on the reverse side (see Exhibit #1). The specific characteristics, which included after-taste, aroma, bitterness, body, carbonation, foam, lightness, strength, and sweetness,
2Pretesting gave no evidence of a positional or letter bias; i.e., for participantsto drink or rate the beer in any particular alphabetical or spatial order.

OF BEER INFLUENCE BRANDIDENTIFICATION ON TASTE PERCEPTION Exhibit I

RATING TAGS Front Side

37 THE FINDINGS

Back Side

The experiment produced a number of useful findings. More specifically, evidence was available to answer these questions: 1. Could beer drinkers,in general, distinguishamong various beers in a blind test? 2. Could beer drinkers identify "their" brands in a blind test? 3. What influencewould brand identificationhave on consumers'evaluationsof various beer brands? 4. What influence would brand identificationhave on consumers'evaluationsof specified beer characteristics? Taste Differences in a Blind Test

"F" TESTBEER
Don't forget to give us your opinion about this beer by placing a cross (Xp in the ONE block of the Rating Scale that best expresses your opinion about it. RATINGSCALE EXCELLENT

CHECK THE BOX THAT BEST EACH DESCRIBES CHARACTERISTIC

Too Just Not EnouhEngh Characteristic Much

The data produced by the experiment indicated that the beer drinkers, as a group, could not distinguish the taste differences among the brands on an overall basis. Table 1 contains the evidence on these ratings. BasiTable I
BLIND OVERALL TASTETEST-ALL PARTICIPANTS Significantly different from other brands' No No No No No

taste After Aroma

D 17 D

D D D
VERY POOR

555 Body 555 [ Carbonation OD5

Bitterness

Beer brand AB CD EF GH IJ

Overall rating 65.0 64.1 63.3 63.4 63.3

loam Lightness
Strength

Sweetness
t to rate this Don't forael beer on the other side of this card.

At the .05 level. Source: Carling BrewingCompany

Don't forget to rate this beer on the other side of this card.

I~~~~~~~~~~~
could each be rated as "too much," "just enough," or "not enough." These nine specific characteristics were selected from a much larger field. Their selection was based on both greater agreement on meaning among beer drinkers and on the ability of beer drinkers, in general, to identify and rate them. One week after the distribution of the unlabeled beer, the empties, nude except for the rating tags, were picked up and new six-packs left behind. This time, however, the bottles were properly labeled with each six-pack containing six different brands of beer (the same five brands plus a sixth brand that was added for the labeled test). In addition, each deposit bottle was tagged (as shown in Exhibit #1), but these tags were identified by the letters K through P. A week after the second placement the empties and rating tags were picked up.

cally, there appeared to be no significant difference among the various brands at the .05 level. Beer drinkers when asked to rate the nine characteristics listed in Table 2 as "not enough," "just enough," and "too much," indicated a difference that was significant in "just enough" votes for one characteristic on one beer (carbonation of brand CD). Other than the one case, the reported differences among brands were so minor as to be not significant. A second analysis of the data, in which the "just enough" category was treated as a neutral or a zero and the "too much" and "not enough" positions as +1 and -1 respectively, in general, substantiated the percentage findings.3 In addition, this analysis indicated that four of the characteristics-aroma, body, foam, and strength-were rated rather uniformly among the brands as "not enough" and one characteristic-bitterness-received a clear "too much" rating. Based on the overall taste test and the specified characteristics test, the conclusion
8 This three-place neutral center scale is in need of further testing and comparison with four- and five-position scales to

help determine the amount of bias it induces.

38

JOURNAL OF MARKETING AUGUST1964 RESEARCH,

was that beer drinkerscould not distinguishtaste differencesamongthe beer brandspresentedin unlabeled bottles. Table2
BLINDTASTETEST-SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS (All Participants) Per cent indicating "just right" by beer brands Characteristic After-taste Aroma Bitterness Body Carbonation Foam Lightness Strength Sweetness
a

AB 59 64 58 53 64 62 68 50 64

CD 52 68 54 58 70 66 63 51 61

EF 57 63 53 60 62 63 69 56 59

GH 55 62 54 53 62 59 64 50 62

IJ 55 62 54 57 65 66 69 53 66

Significant difference among brandsa No No No No Only CD No No No No

brandGH must not have drunkthe brandbecausethey preferredits flavor-they rated two of the four comparisonbrandsas superiorin flavor and the other two as no less than equal to "their"brand.And based on the overall taste ratings,the regulardrinkersof brand CD couldjust as well have drunkany of the othercomparison brands-there were no significantdifferences amongthe assignedratings. Based on the data securedfrom the experiment,the finding appearedto be that most beer drinkerscould not identify"their"brandsof beer in a blind comparison test.
Influence of Brand Identification on Overall Ratings

At the .05 level. Source: Carling BrewingCompany

Could Drinkers Identify "Their"Brands?

The labeled test clearly indicatedthat beer drinkers would assign "their"brands superiorratings and, accordingly, it was assumed that if participantscould identify"their"brandsin the blind test that they would respondto them with superiorratings.The generalratings in the nude bottle test, by branddrunkmost often, indicated that none of the brand groups rated the taste of "their" brandbeer superiorover all of the other beers (see Table 3). For example,regulardrinkersof brandAB, indicatedvia theirratingsthat they preferred "their"brandover EF and CD, but they gave virtually similar ratings to brands IJ and GH as they gave to their own brand.Drinkersof the other brandsdid not brandsas favorably rate "their" in the blindcomparison tests as did AB drinkers.Drinkersof brand EF rated beer CD significantlyabove "their" brand. Users of
Table 3
USERS LOYALTY TO "THEIR"BRAND (BLIND TEST) Taste tesf ratings by brand rated Branddrunk most often AB CD EF GH IJ AB 67.0 64.9 68.8 55.4 68.4 CD 62.4* 65.6 74.5* 59.2 60.5* EF 57.7* 65.4 65.0 68.7* 69.2 GH 65.0 63.2 62.5 60.0 62.0 IJ 65.8 63.9 61.4 71.4* 65.6 Own brand rated significantly higher than all othersa No No No No No

At the .05 level. * Brands significantly different from user's own brand. Source: Carling BrewingCompany

IJ rated all of the comparisonbrands except CD as equals and CD was rated as poorertasting.Drinkersof

A number of importantfindingsarose out of comparisonsof the datafrom the nude bottlephase with the labeled bottle phase. The overall ratingsfor all of the brands increased considerablywith brand identifications. However, there was also much variationin the amountof increaseregistered amongthe variousbrands. And when beer drinkerswere categorizedaccordingto the brandmostfrequently rated drunk,they consistently "their"beer higherthan comparisonbeers in this positive identification taste test. Also, therewas muchvariation in the amountsof increase-some brandsreceived much higher ratings (i.e., overall ratings) from their regularusers than did other brandsfrom their regular users. The differencesin the ratings were assumed to be due to the presenceof labels-the only alteredconditionsof the experiment. The data that gave rise to the several statements about the effects of brand identificationare examined in more detail below. In the blind test, none of the five brands received overall ratings that were sufficiently differentfrom all of the others to be consideredstatisHowever,in the labeled test the diftically significant. ferencesin all but two of the overall ratingswere significant(the ratingsassignedto brandsEF and IJ were relatively the same). Looking at some of the other figures,brand GH was rated significantly higher than all of the other brandsand CD was rated higher than all brandsbut GH. Other differencesthat were judged can be noted in Table 4. And as statistically significant can be seen in this table, all five brandsin the labeled test were rated significantlyhigher than the same brands in the blind test. Remember, these were the same brandsof beer used in the nude test, but in the labeled test the participants could clearly identify each beer brand. The loyaltyof the participants toward"their"brands increasedwhen positive brand identification was possible (see Table 5). All of the labeled ratingsassigned by regularuserswere significantly higherthan the blind test ratings.In the blind test, participants indicated,at best, very little ability to pick "their"beers and set them off with relativelyhigh overall ratings. For example, the regulardrinkersof brand CD in the blind test awardedall of the brands about the same overall

OF BEER BRANDIDENTIFICATION INFLUENCE ON TASTE PERCEPTION Table 4

COMPARISON TASTETEST-BLIND VS. LABELED (OVERALLRATINGS) Significant difference between blind and labeled test' Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

39

Beer brand AB CD EF GH IJ Significant differences between brands

Blind fest 65.0 64.1 63.3 63.4 63.3

Labeled fesf 70.6 72.9 67.8 76.9 67.0

zero value, the participants tended to rate all of the beers as not having enough aroma, body, foam, and strength. All but one of the beers were rated on bitterness as "too much," and accordingly, not sweet enough. In the labeled ratings, "aroma" was greatly improved as was "body," "foam," and "strength." However, the ratings on "bitterness" and "sweetness" remained virtually the same as recorded in the nude test. CONCLUSIONS Participants, in general, did not appear to be able to discern the taste differences among the various beer brands, but apparently labels, and their associations, did influence their evaluations. In other words, product distinctions or differences, in the minds of the participants, arose primarily through their receptiveness to the various firms' marketing efforts rather than through perceived physical product differences. Such a finding suggested that the physical product differences had little to do with the various brands' relative success or failure in the market (assuming the various physical products had been relatively constant). Furthermore, this elimination of the product variable focused attention on the various firms' marketing efforts, and, more specifically, on the resulting brand images. This experiment also has helped the Company measure and rank its brand image relative to competitive brand images and has offered base comparison marks for similar experiments, both in the same and other markets at later dates. Such information has helped in Company evaluation and competitive marketing efforts. And to the extent that product images, and their changes, are believed to be a result of advertising (i.e., as other variables can be accounted for or held to be homogeneous among the competitive firms), the ability of firms' advertising programs to influence product images can be more thoroughly examined.

None

Yesb

At the .05 level. bAll brands were significantly different from all others at the .05 level except EF and IJ relative to each other. Source: Carling BrewingCompany.

rating. However, in the labeled test, the CD drinkers awarded their beer brand an overall rating of 83.6, an 18 point increase over the blind test rating. This change was sufficiently above their overall ratings of all comparison brands to be statistically significant. The gains in ratings were not uniform from one group to another. In the labeled test, brands GH, CD, and EF picked up more sizable gains than did AB and IJ. Comparison of the data in Table 5 with that in Table 3 will indicate other important rating changes from the blind to the label test. Influence of Brand Identification on Specified Characteristics The labeled test also produced some changes in ratings of specified characteristics of beer brands. In the blind test with the "just enough" category assigned a

Table5
USERS LOYALTY TO "THEIR"BRAND (LABELTEST) Branddrunk most often AB CD EF GH IJ Taste test ratings by brand rated AB (77.3) 66.3 67.3 73.1 70.3 CD 61.1 (83.6) 71.5 72.5 69.3 EF 62.8 67.4 (82.3) 77.5 67.2 GH 73.4 78.3 71.9 (80.0) 76.7 IJ 63.1 63.1 71.5 67.5 (73.5) Own brand rated significantly higher Yes Yes Yes Only over IJ Only over EF Blind test ratings for own brand (67.0) (65.6) (65.0) (60.0) (65.6)

'At the .05 level. Source: Carling BrewingCompany.