Can marketing change our preferences?

A few years ago, the company PepsiCo, manufacturer and bottler of the beverage Pepsi, launched a very particular advertising campaign on the market. It was known throughout the world as "the Pepsi challenge" and basically consisted of a social experiment that sought to prove that the public, in general, preferred the taste of Pepsi at Coca Cola, which was, and still is today, the main competing brand.

Tasting tables were set up in public places in many cities around the world where people could try both soft drinks, under a procedure called “blind tasting”. That is, participants took a sip of one of the drinks, then tried a sip of the other, and then they had to determine their preference, state which of the two they liked further.

As the company expected, most people said they liked Pepsi better.. Of course, the company took care that these results were disclosed and became known to the farthest corners of the planet.

Effective Marketing: Coca-Cola's Reaction

Coca-Cola's response was not long in coming. First they screamed in heaven, and then they set out to replicate the advertising campaign, but this time, obviously, starting from the exact opposite premise.

And indeed, what they were able to observe was that most people, when it came to choosing, favored Coca-Cola.

The contradiction in the contrasting of the data quickly became apparent. Either the Pepsi research and marketing people had misrepresented the data and were lying, or the Coca-Cola people were. Both companies couldn't be right.

An independent investigation into Pepsi and Coca-Cola

It seems that the mystery reached the ears of a group of scientists who were fanatical about the drinks, who, moved by curiosity, set out to do their own investigation. They were determined to find out which of the two brands won the preference of the public.

But they introduced a variant in the process. This time, while the participants drank the soda, their brains they were going to be monitored under functional magnetic resonance technology.

What is functional magnetic resonance?

The functional magnetic resonance (abbreviated fMRI and English) is a tool based on the use of a device that allows scientists to observe, live and direct, what group of neurons are activated in a person's brain while being asked to perform some activity; in this particular case, savoring the dark and fizzy drink.

To do this, the person must be introduced, horizontally, inside a resonator. His head is held in a harness, as it is necessary for it not to move so that brain activity can be monitored.

This is possible since this type of technology makes it possible to measure the metabolism of nerve cells that shape the different structures that make up the brain. Where a greater blood supply and oxygen consumption are detected, it follows that there is neurons on and doing his job.

How did the soft drink get to the participant's mouth in such uncomfortable experimental conditions? Simple: through a hose that made it possible for the drink to travel from afar.

The power of the Coca-Cola brand over our brain

And here comes the truly amazing thing.

The researchers found that, both when people drank Pepsi and when they tried Coca-Cola, in their brains what is commonly called "the pleasure circuit" was put into operation. This alludes to certain brain areas, which are responsible for the enjoyment we experience when we are exposed to circumstances that we like. It can be about drinking soda, as in this case, but also experiences of a very varied nature, such as having sex, watching our favorite television series, reading a book that we are passionate about, eating churros filled with dulce de leche, or smoking dope.

But the curious thing about the case is that, when the people who participated in the experiment were informed of what was the brand of soda they were drinking, something else happened, another region of the brain was activated.

This time, it was a very different structure from the previous one, called dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and which is located approximately behind each of the temples of the human skull.

What is the function of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex?

Well, this part of the brain is considered to be the anatomical basis for various higher order mental processes, characteristic of humans, among them, the formation of concepts and the organization and regulation of functions intellectuals.

Simplifying things a bit, when participants drank soda without knowing the brand, the brain's pleasure circuit turned on, triggered by the pleasant sensation coming from the taste buds.

But when they were told the brand of the drink, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex also turned on. In other words, the area of ​​the brain where the knowledge and valuation of the brand is stored was also activated.

And here is a detail that is not minor. Dorsolateral neurons were much more industrious when people drank Coca-Cola compared to when they drank Pepsi. The resonator monitors showed much more intense activity when the participants were aware that the brand they were tasting was number one in the world.

And it turns out that, precisely, the only procedural difference between the two original advertising campaigns had been that the Coca-Cola people communicated to those who came to drink at their tasting stations which glass contained which soda and which other. Furthermore, the containers were marked with their respective logos.

On the other hand, in the "Pepsi challenge", the participants made value judgments based solely on the taste of the drinks they were trying, since they had no knowledge of which was which. In this case, the choice was strictly based on the degree of sensory satisfaction experienced by the person.

When marketing beats flavor

Where does all this lead us? First of all, for most people, everything seems to indicate that Pepsi is tastier than Coca-Cola.

Second, when people know what they are drinking, they prefer Coca-Cola, and this choice is fundamentally driven by brand power.

It seems incredible, but a simple trademark can have enough weight to overwhelm the net sensory enjoyment that we experience when we consume a product. A simple brand can beat enjoyment based on the senses, twisting our decisions and leading us to opt for an alternative that gives us less pleasure than another.

When the participants of the experiment had the expectation that they were going to drink Coca-Cola, that soft drink seemed tastier than the competition. On the other hand, when they did not have the expectation of drinking Coca-Cola, the ground was leveled for pleasure. real sensory, clean and without conditioning, based solely on taste, and there it clearly won Pepsi. Amazing.

All trademarks have a value for us. And that value occupies a place in our brain. Marketing companies have known this for a long time. Their job consists precisely in creating all possible added value through the brand, which takes the product to a privileged position in the consumer's mind. The instrument used for this purpose is the incessant advertising bombardment by all possible means of communication. Something that Coca-Cola knows and does very well.